


Foundation (Build It Higher, Bury It Deeper)

by RayShippouUchiha



Series: This Heart Is In Ruins (But There Are Forests And Whirlpools Still) [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Abandonment, Abuse, Alternate Training Trip, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Animal Traits, Anxiety, BAMF Uzumaki Naruto, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Coming of Age, Death, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Feels, Fights, Fox Summons, Foxes, Fuuinjutsu, Fuuinjutsu Master Uzumaki Naruto, Genderfluid Character, Hurt Uzumaki Naruto, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jiraiya Messes Up, Kishimoto I Just Want To Talk, Learning Disabilities, Loneliness, M/M, Naruto Is His Mother's Son, Panic, Panic Attacks, Post Invasion AU, Pre-Shippuden, Shinobi, Smart Uzumaki Naruto, Training, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Uzumaki Feels, Uzumaki Lore, Uzumaki Naruto Needs a Hug, Uzushio Feels, Uzushiogakure | Hidden Eddy Village, We Take Canon Out Back And Put It Out Of Our Misery, alternate time skip, naruto leaves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:41:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21778495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RayShippouUchiha/pseuds/RayShippouUchiha
Summary: It’s just … he’d thought, given his fight against Neji and then his confrontation with Gaara, that someone would finally really acknowledge what he’d done.  That beyond Iruka-sensei’s crushing hug and Kakashi-sensei’s absent pat, someone would actually notice that he’d won against both of them.That he’d beaten a genius on his own and then had battled another jinchūriki to a stand still.So while he hadn’t really expected to be promoted too he’d still ...
Relationships: Kyuubi | Nine-tails | Kurama & Uzumaki Naruto, Tsunade & Uzumaki Naruto
Series: This Heart Is In Ruins (But There Are Forests And Whirlpools Still) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1569529
Comments: 1378
Kudos: 6938
Collections: A Collection of Beloved Inserts, Ashes' Library, Extraordinary Naruto FanFics, FTTN's Favorites, Fics with Fantastic Worldbuilding, Naruto - (読み返す [よみかえす]), Naruto bests, Storycatchers Best of Naruto pile





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was all spawned over on Tumblr so really I'm only 90% to blame at best.

Naruto stares up at the massive wooden doors looming in front of him with something he doesn’t want to admit feels almost like _fear_ twisting thick and heavy in his chest.

His heart’s been pounding and his stomach’s been a churning mess ever since the messenger hawk had dropped off the official looking scroll at his apartment this morning.

Naruto’s been in and out of the Hokage Tower for his entire life.

This is the first time he’s ever actually been _summoned_.

And he has no idea what it could possibly be about. Especially since it was only him that’d been summoned instead of all of Team 7.

No one else had said a word about going to the Tower after training today, they’d all just split up and gone their separate ways. Well, Sakura had followed after Sasuke as _always_ but that wasn’t the point.

The point was that, at the end of training, his team had gone their separate ways instead of gathering together so Kakashi-sensei could herd them all towards the Tower.

Naruto had been left standing alone at the edge of the training ground watching the other three walk away from him.

Like always.

Blood, hot and salty, blossoms across his tongue then and Naruto forces himself to stop worrying at his lower lip with the teeth that have gotten notably sharper since his battle with Haku.

Since he had …

 _Well_.

Naruto shakes the sharp sting of hurt that always comes with thinking about that day, about what he’d _almost_ had taken from him and about what he’d _actually_ lost, off before it can settle any deeper than it already has for the day.

He can’t afford to have one of his bad days. Not now, maybe not ever again.

Not with the Academy over, not now that he’s a _real_ shinobi and the old man is dead and gone, no longer around to smooth over his absences.

Not when people might come looking for him if he misses his summons.

Not when, and somehow the thought is _worse_ , they might not.

His hands clench and unclench rhythmically at his sides in an attempt to work out the tingling that had sparked to life there earlier. He has to be careful with that too, careful that his palms don’t end up bloodied with barely any effort at all, careful that he doesn’t puncture anything or _anyone_ he touches.

His teeth weren’t the only things that had sharpened after that day so Naruto’s had to relearn a lot of habits over the past few months. He’s had to learn to touch _lightly_ in a way he never has before, since the first time he drew on that searing red chakra.

Naruto forces himself to take slow, even breaths and to count the swirls in the wood grain of the door. It’s a secret technique he’d learned when he was little, when he’d first been taken out of the orphanage and put in his apartment. He’d spent more than one night curled up in a corner, scared of the incoming night and the too quiet spaces of his new home. Even breathing and counting had been all that had gotten him through some of those nights without screaming.

On others, when the silence had pressed in around the edges, it hadn’t been enough.

Calmer now, Naruto brings his hands up to rest on the back of his head, fingers laced together, and then he kicks out at the door instead of actually knocking.

Shizune opens it a few seconds later, a distracted smile on her face as she waves him inside only to step out herself, pulling the door back closed behind her.

Naruto moves just a bit further into the room, eyes catching and holding on the sight of Tsunade-baa-chan sitting behind the desk he still has a hard time thinking of as _hers_.

“About time you came in brat,” Tsunade huffs at him. “Thought you were going to stand out there all day.”

Naruto feels heat creep up his neck just a bit, embarrassment at being caught lingering outside sliding up his spine, but does his best not to show it.

“What’d you want, old hag?” Naruto half grumbles, half sneers from where he lingers near the door.

“Disrespectful brat,” Tsunade shoots back as she leans back in her chair, “I’m Hokage now you know? You should show me proper respect, especially when I summon you for actual business.”

That almost fear from before makes a sharp return.

There’s a moment of silence and then Tsunade sighs, raises a hand to flicker her fingers towards the door, and then leans forwards to brace her elbows on the desktop.

“Come here, Naruto,” she says, voice surprisingly soft as she nods towards the space in front of her desk. “We need to talk.”

Naruto, a bit thrown by the way the room suddenly feels emptier than he ever remembers it feeling back when he’d meet with the old man, drops his arms down by his sides and moves further into the room until he’s standing right across from her.

For a long moment Naruto just stands there as Tsunade watches him, his fingertips pressed against the sides of his pants, claws sinking into the material out of a nervousness he can’t quite suppress. He can always stitch any cuts closed later if he has to.

“Do you know why the Nara boy, Shikamaru, got promoted even though he forfeited his fight?” Tsunade finally breaks the silence.

Naruto blinks and then squints his eyes slightly in confusion. This was _not_ the direction he’d thought this meeting, or whatever it is, was going to go.

No one’s really talked to him about the exam or the failed invasion outside of the short debrief he’d had to give in the immediate aftermath.

Sasuke had been too busy being angry, Sakura too busy with Sasuke, and Kakashi-sensei …

Kakashi-sensei didn’t actually _talk_ to Naruto that often anyways.

“Cause he’s super smart even though he’s a lazy ass?” Naruto answers with a small shrug. It had made sense to him after the first burst of shock that had come hand in hand with seeing Shikamaru in his new vest.

Even though Shikamaru had dragged his fight out for so long only to forfeit and was notoriously lazy on top of those two things he was still so smart they’d promoted him anyways.

Those were facts that were easy to accept.

Even though, Naruto admits if only to himself, they had _stung_ just a bit when he’d first found out.

Not that he’s upset _Shikamaru_ got promoted, not really. Shikamaru had always been, if not exactly _nice_ to Naruto, then at least ... _normal_ towards him. He’d laughed at his pranks sometimes and he’d never hit him outside of training.

And when Shikamaru had called him an idiot Naruto had known that it was, at least in part, because most everyone was some kind of idiot in Shikamaru’s eyes.

It hadn’t been because he’d thought _Naruto_ was exceptionally stupid. Not like everyone else did when he stumbled over reading aloud in class. Not like Naruto himself did a lot of the time when he couldn’t bring himself to concentrate or didn’t, _couldn’t_ , read fast enough and in turn failed this test or that exam.

It’s just … he’d _thought_ , given his fight against Neji and then his confrontation with Gaara, that someone would finally really _acknowledge_ what he’d done. That beyond Iruka-sensei’s crushing hug and Kakashi-sensei’s absent pat, someone would actually notice that he’d _won_ against both of them.

That he’d beaten a _genius_ on his own and then had battled another jinchūriki _to a stand still_.

So while he hadn’t _really_ expected to be promoted too he’d still ...

“No denying either of those,” Tsunade snorts, breaking him out of his thought spiral, “but that wasn’t the full reasoning.”

“What’s this got to do with anything?” Naruto asks abruptly. He’d rather not sit through a lecture about how great Shikamaru was and how Naruto should be more like him if that’s where this was going. He gets enough of that when it comes to being compared to Sasuke as it is.

“Patience brat,” Tsunade clicks her tongue at him. “That’s going to have to be one of the first things you learn next.”

Naruto just squints at her in confusion.

“Don’t worry about it right now,” Tsunade waves it away. “But back to the Nara boy. He got promoted not just because he’s a genius but because of his ability to use that mind of his in a practical sense. Not only did he out-think his opponent to a standstill, he then had the battlefield instincts to realize he couldn’t win. He realized that his limitations put him on the losing side of the equation and he backed out. A strategic retreat, if you will. It possibly wouldn’t have worked against a real opponent out in the field but in the relatively safe environment of the exams it was a sound move. That kind of ability, the soundness of mind to tell when a mission has gone bad, that’s the kind of thing that needs to be nurtured and honed. That’s chūnin worthy thinking. Do you understand that?”

Naruto nods slowly because yes, now that she’s explained it, he really does.

And he also understands just how far from the way his own brain works, both in and out of a fight, that kind of thinking is.

_Oh._

So maybe that’s why no one had considered him for chūnin and not just because ...

“But,” Tsunade continues before he can sink too deep, “no matter what the Council believes, that’s not the only kind of thinking and ability _I_ consider chūnin worthy.”

Naruto goes still, something he refuses to admit feels almost like hope clawing to life in his chest.

“Sometimes,” Tsunade says, opening a drawer and removing something before she pushes herself up out of her chair, “a chūnin, a _shinobi_ , needs to have the instincts to react. The strength to press forward no matter the odds.”

Tsunade moves around her desk until she’s standing in front of him.

“Sometimes,” Tsunade’s voice is soft, almost gentle, as she stares down at him, “all a shinobi needs to be, is _strong_ enough to wrestle victory from the jaws of defeat. Or stubborn enough to complete the mission even if logic, and everyone else around them, says they can’t win.”

Naruto’s chest tightens and his vision dims around the edges.

Because in her hand is a familiar looking vest.

One of Tsunade’s hands comes up to press on his shoulder and Naruto follows the prompt, sinking down to kneel at her feet, a hand coming up to press his fist against his heart.

It’s the first time he’s ever done this outside of the lessons when it had been drilled into them in the Academy.

He’d never given this kind of respect to the old man but he doesn’t hesitate to give it to _her_.

Because, Naruto thinks dazedly, in this moment more than any other so far, Tsunade is his _Hokage_.

“After seeing your strength of will first hand and reviewing the reports on your battle with Hyūga Neji and your confrontation with Gaara,” Tsunade’s voice holds the ring of ceremony Naruto only ever heard on rare occasion from the old man, and never towards _him_ , “I have decided that you, Uzumaki Naruto, are _worthy_ of the title and position of chūnin.”

Tsunade settles the chūnin vest across his shoulders and Naruto bites down on the inside of his jaw, filling his mouth with blood in an effort to stifle his sob.

Nothing stops the tears though.

“Are yo-,” Naruto bites the half formed sentence off, the words he wants to say seemingly unable to make the journey down his tongue. “Is this … is this a _joke_?”

This can’t be real. It _can’t_ be.

The chūnin vest is so _heavy_ on his shoulders.

_This has to be real or Naruto is never going to recover._

“I wouldn’t lie about something like this,” Tsunade tells him, mouth pulled down at the corners even as she scuffs him lightly on the back of the head. “ _Idiot_.”

All Naruto can think to do is lunge to his feet and throw his arms around Tsunade’s waist.

Tsunade stiffens for a split second before she softens, arms coming up to pull him close, pressing his face into her shoulder and surrounding him with the scent of sake and mint.

Naruto’s only been hugged like this, full body contact with a grip that feels just right, a handful of times before in his life and it makes him feel both grounded and as if he could float away all at the same time.

“Crybaby,” Tsunade whispers thickly, her hand scrubbing through his hair and then cupping the back of his head in a move that feels so _affectionate_ that Naruto’s tears just flow faster. “You did good brat. Real good. There’s no way in hell I was going to let you or anyone else doubt that for a second longer.”

~~~

Later, far later than Naruto’s pride really wants to admit to, he finally manages to stop crying.

Tsunade, surprisingly gentle and without any mocking, shuffles him towards one of the couches in the corner. One of the same couches Naruto used to fall asleep on as a kid on the extremely rare days when the old man would let him linger in his office for longer than a few minutes.

With the exception of a large wooden chest covered in paper seals settled on one of the red couch’s cushions and a trio of sake jars on the small table nothing’s changed about the entire set up.

Naruto ends up sitting on the edge of the couch with the chest on it with _his vest_ clutched in his hands.

Naruto’s pretty sure he’s _never_ going to let the thing go.

Because it’s _proof_. Proof that he’s not dead last anymore. That he’s not going to be a genin forever, stupid and _useless_ and fated to never advance.

No matter what other people might say about him the vest is tangible _proof_ that they’re _wrong_. That all of the things he’s been screaming about for as long as he can remember are _possible_.

They might not listen to _him_ but they won’t be able to ignore the vest.

“Now,” Tsunade breaks the silence as she leans back on the opposite couch, sake jar in one hand, “there’s more we need to talk about before you go running around to show off. Things related to your promotion and a few that are more … _personal_. More emotional too, knowing you.”

The slight smile on her face takes any possible sting out of the light jab.

“You gonna make me a jōnin now too?” Naruto can’t help but tease. “Or maybe go ahead and give me the hat?”

“Cute,” Tsunade scoffs. “Keep getting stronger and maybe I’ll give it to you in another decade or so when you’re not a snot nosed little brat anymore and you’re big enough to actually wear the damn thing.”

Naruto’s breath catches.

Because it’s the first time he can remember someone not shutting him down outright or only pretending to believe him when he mentions one day being Hokage.

Most people laugh, a lot of people insult him, others just roll their eyes and pretend they didn’t hear him.

Teuchi and Ayame at Ichiraku’s have always humored him happily enough. Iruka-sensei, for all that he’s proven his belief in Naruto, tends to pat him on the head and buy him more ramen.

Kakashi-sensei, when he bothers to pay attention, tends to hum and comment on yet another way Naruto’s basics are currently lacking without actually teaching him how to fix them.

The only other person to show any kind of actual faith in him was his would be rival for the position, _Konohamaru_.

Tsunade had scoffed, yes, but she also hadn’t shut him down outright.

Instead of saying _no,_ she'd said _maybe_ , instead of calling him _weak_ she’d said, _keep growing_.

He … he’s not really sure how that makes him feel, can’t put a name to the emotion bubbling up in the center of his chest.

But he does know that, whatever that emotion is, it feels _good_.

“You’re a chūnin now,” Tsunade continues, “and if you’re old enough and mature enough for that then I think you’re more than ready for what else I want to tell you.”

“I can handle it,” Naruto nods firmly. Because he can. There’s not much, in his opinion, that could bring him down right now.

“Good,” Tsunade nods as she pauses to take a sip of sake, “then I’ll cut to the chase. What do you know about your parents?”

Naruto freezes, his hands spasm against his vest, and his heart drops.

Nothing can bring him down except, apparently, for _that._

“Naruto?” Tsunade prompts him, brows furrowed.

“I …” Naruto swallows hard and forces himself to keep going even as he shifts his gaze so that he’s staring over Tsunade’s shoulder instead of into her eyes. “I know ... _enough_.”

“Sensei told you?” Tsunade seems surprised. “I, we, were all under the impression you didn’t know. Or that you’d have said something if you did.”

“ _No_ ,” Naruto shakes his head sharply and then drops his eyes down to his knees. “The old man … he didn’t like it when I asked about them. He wouldn’t get _mad_ but he … I stopped asking after a while. And then I figured it out and I was gonna ask again … but after Mizuki-sensei … after that … I guess I didn’t really _want_ to know more. Didn’t want it to be _real_. And I didn’t tell anyone because people already don’t like me and it … that would’ve just made it all _worse_.”

“I think,” Tsunade says slowly, “that you need to tell me _exactly_ what you think you know about your parents, Naruto.”

When he looks up at her there’s something watchful in her expression, her eyes are narrowed and her shoulders straight.

Naruto winces, bites down on his lip again, and kneads at the vest in his hands, careful not to rip it with his claws. It’s far more precious than his pants.

This _really_ isn’t something he likes talking about and after being _so happy_ for once with his promotion he just wishes …

“They were traitors,” Naruto finally presses the words out despite the way they’ve sat thick and heavy on his tongue for what feels like forever now.

The sake jar in Tsunade’s hand _shatters_.

“ _What_ ,” Tsunade whispers, voice sharp as she ignores the shattered ceramic and sake dripping from her clenched fist, “ _did you just say_?”

“They betrayed the village,” Naruto forces himself to keep going. Saying it aloud _hurts_ but he presses forward. The truth has been festering inside of him since the day he figured it out as a kid. Maybe finally admitting the truth after all this time will lessen the ache. “Like Mizuki-sensei or … or like _Orochimaru_. They did something really bad and that’s why … that’s why I was picked right? For the fox? The old man said I was chosen for a reason so that’s why the Yondaime … he picked me because my, _my parents_ were _bad_ so there’s no one who’d … that’s why, right? Why no family or, or any of their friends or _anyone_ ever wanted me? Because of the fox and because of whatever they did?”

There’s a moment of ringing silence and then Tsunade moves almost faster than Naruto can see.

One second she’s sitting on the opposite couch and the next she’s up, chest heaving, the couch is gone, and the window behind her is a shattered mess.

In the next second there’s a flutter of movement and three ANBU flit into the office through the broken window.

“ _Get out!_ ” Tsunade roars at them, eyes narrowed and hands flexing.

Frozen in his spot on the couch Naruto just watches with wide eyes.

Between one breath and the next they’re alone in the room again.

And then, just like that, the rage seems to drain out of Tsunade.

She sighs, scrubs her clean hand over her face, and then moves across the room to practically throw herself down on the couch between Naruto and the chest.

“Sensei better be happy he’s already dead,” Tsunade mutters lowly much to Naruto’s shock. “Otherwise I’d probably kill him myself. Or Kakashi or Jiraiya would if they heard this shit. _Especially_ Kakashi.”

Naruto feels more than a bit mystified.

“Alright kid,” Tsunade shifts forward, elbows planted on her knees, and head turned so that they’re looking at each other head on. “I’m going to do what should’ve been done the moment you put that headband on, if not sooner. I’m going to tell you the _truth_.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we move forward a bit as Naruto learns about his own origin story

“Your father,” Tsunade’s eyes are watchful as she says the words slowly, carefully, like she’s testing them out before she gives them to him. “I didn’t know him as well as some.”

Naruto’s heart skips a beat in his chest and tears prickle the corners of his eyes again.

He’s never had those words be his before, has never heard _your father_ directed at _him,_ and to hear them now feels almost surreal.

He, Uzumaki Naruto, had a _father_ once.

Had a father in more ways than just the abstract, and now Naruto’s _finally_ going to learn about him.

“And this,” Tsunade brings a hand up to gesture between the two of them, “this is a conversation that you should, by all rights, have had with others years ago. People who knew him better, who were … connected to him on a deeper level than me. But you haven’t and I’m not about to send you away thinking what you’ve been thinking. So I can’t tell you everything about him, and I probably won’t be able to answer most of your questions, but I will tell you _everything_ I can. And then, if you want, I’ll tell you who in the village might be able to tell you the rest.”

Naruto’s hands tremble but he twists his fingers around the material of his vest and does his best to just breathe.

“Your father,” Tsunade presses on, “was a _genius_.”

Naruto stares up at her in silence, more than a bit entranced.

“He was brave,” Tsunade says. “Bold and strong, deadly both on and off the battlefield. Handsome too, like you’re already growing up to be. You get this mess of yours from him,” Tsunade reaches out to tug at one of Naruto’s blond spikes and then her fingers, so strong but deceptively soft, trail down to rest just beneath his right eye, her thumb brushing away the tears she finds there. “Those pretty eyes too.”

“Was he,” Naruto pauses, clears his throat roughly, and forces himself to continue, “was he an Uzumaki? Is that where I got my last name? That’s how it works right?”

“No,” something tired and old and _sad_ flits across Tsunade’s expression then. “You got a lot of things from your father but the Uzumaki name and all that it stands for? You got all of that and more from your mother.”

Naruto’s vision dims just a bit around the edges as his heart speeds up again, a rapid fire beat that almost makes his chest hurt.

A _mother_.

He had a mother too. A _real one_ and not just half formed fantasies of soft hands tending his hurts. Not just the half remembered dreams of warm smiles and even warmer hugs that never happened. Not just the longing filled daydreams that had been one of the few things that had gotten him through the harsh and lonely years before the Academy started.

“ _My_ _mom_?” Naruto’s voice sounds so young even to his own ears. Sounds small and _aching_ somehow.

When he was younger there was nothing Naruto wouldn’t have traded just to have a mother of his own. Nothing he wouldn’t have given to have that if only for a day. For an _hour_ even.

Most days there’s still precious little he wouldn’t be willing to give up to have even a _taste_ of that kind of nurture, of the care so many of his classmates had always complained about.

“There’s … so much of her in you, Naruto,” Tsunade tells him softly. “It’s … it’s easier for me to see her in you and you need to understand that it’s because you are so much _more_ than even you realize. You’re part of a legacy you don’t even know exists yet, one that stretches back for _generations_. And it should’ve _never_ been kept from you. Especially not for this long. I’ll give you as much of that as I can too, but … not yet. We’ll get to that, okay? This comes first.”

Naruto immediately nods in agreement. Tsunade is offering him the one thing he’s wanted longer than anything else, the thing he’s longed for even when he was terrified of it, the thing he’s dreamed about more often than the Hokage seat and all that it would represent.

There’s no way he’ll go against her in this moment.

Not when she’s holding his past, his origins, _his family_ , in her hands and finally offering them to him.

Not when she might _stop_ if he does.

“Your father was a good man,” Tsunade tells him softly. “A kind one too, kinder than a lot of people think shinobi can or should be. But what you have to know, what you have to truly _understand_ , is that, above all else, your father was _loyal_ to what he loved. He loved you and your mother desperately, but he also loved this village. So much,” Tsunade’s mouth twists bitterly, “maybe too much if what I’ve seen is anything to go by.”

“ _What_?” Naruto whispers as he feels ice trace down his spin.

“You were right about one thing,” Tsunade’s mouth is tight line and her gaze is direct, “you _were_ chosen to hold the Kyūbi because of who your parents were. On both sides.”

Naruto tries to breathe evenly.

 _Fails_.

“Your father was an orphan but his family name was Namikaze,” Tsunade’s voice comes to him as if from a distance, as if from underneath the watery layers of his mind.

 _Namikaze_.

Naruto knows that name.

He _knows_ that name.

_Everyone does._

Because that’s the name of the ...

“...Yondaime Hokage,” Tsunade almost whispers, “Namikaze Minato.”

Naruto’s vision dims around the edges again, the air in his lungs suddenly heavier than should be possible.

He _knows_ his hands have spasmed, knows that one’s clenched around his vest and the other is now pressed against his stomach and the seal that rests there, _but he can’t feel them_.

All he can feel is the heavy weight of phantom chains wrapped around his neck, choking the breath and the very life out of him.

Because he can’t breathe.

His father is, _was_ , the Yondaime and _Naruto can’t breathe_.

He _can’t breathe._

His father was _Namikaze Minato_ and there isn’t enough air to be found.

 _He can’t_ …

His hero, _his father,_ had done this to him.

 _He_...

“... _breathe_ ,” Tsunade’s hand presses down between his shoulder blades, forcing him forward until he’s bent over, head hanging down between his knees. “Naruto, brat, you need to _breathe_.”

Naruto sucks in a sharp breath, black spots clearing from his vision as his chest abruptly expands. 

The sound that escapes him is somewhere between a sob and a laugh and no matter how deeply he tries to breathe he feels as if it’s not enough.

_It might never be enough again._

Naruto thinks of all the time, _days, weeks, years_ , he’s spent scanning the faces of villagers, both civilians and shinobi alike, looking for any hint of familiarity, any bit of similarity to what he saw in the mirror everyday. Thinks of all the time he’d spent stalking one Yamanaka or another because they were the only blonde clan in the village even if the shades didn’t come close to matching.

Thinks of all of the nights he’d spent sneaking around the Lotus District flitting from House to House in some desperate attempt to find someone, _anyone_ , with some version of his features hiding among Konoha’s sullied blossoms.

Thinks of all the time he’d spent trying to find some tiny bit of himself in the cold stares and disdainful faces of strangers.

Thinks of the quick little once overs he _still_ can’t help but give to every new person he meets, that eternal sense of _searching_ he’s lived with his entire life.

And now, after all of that, after all of the stinging, _aching_ , loneliness of never seeing himself in anyone else, his _father_ had been up on the mountain staring down at him.

Watching over him this entire time.

“ _They loved him_ ,” Naruto rasps. “The village still _loves_ him so _why_ …?”

They both know what he’s asking.

If the village loved the Yondaime _so much_ that it still practically worships him after he’s been dead for over a _decade_ , then why is Naruto, _his only son_ , so widely reviled.

“Fear and ignorance,” Tsunade answers softly, bitterly. “It almost always comes down to those two things. Here it’s fear of the kyūbi and ignorance of both what it means to be jinchūriki and your heritage. Maybe a part of it’s a willing sort of ignorance but there’s also the fact that Sensei … he ordered it to be kept secret, all of it. He decreed your status and heritage classified and then he gave you your mother’s name.”

“ _Why_?” Naruto rasps the question out, tear filled eyes still staring at the floor.

Naruto had thought that the old man cared for him, had always considered him the closest thing to family, to a grandfather, he’d likely ever have.

To know that Naruto had once had a _family_ , that his hero was his _father_ , and Sarutobi never told him is...

“There are a lot of people who would have, who will _still_ , want you dead just for being his son.” Tsunade tells him. “For being an Uzumaki too as far as that’s concerned, but that’s a more distant, _older_ , issue. I suppose Sensei thought it would keep you _safe_ , would help you to live a normal life without the fox’s presence or Minato’s legacy hanging over your head so he tried to stop people from talking about either or treating you different.”

There it is again, that cracked and broken almost sobbing laugh. It bubbles up out of his throat almost against his will.

“Yeah,” Tsunade agrees roughly, “I guess that worked out real well in the end didn’t it?”

Naruto thinks of the years of silence, only the sound of his own voice filling up his empty apartment. Thinks about how excited he’d been for the Academy because, friends or no friends, at least when the Academy had started he’d had a distraction from the absolute silence that had pressed in at him from all corners. Silence that was normally only broken if he made noise himself.

Naruto had learned to be bright and _loud_ at a young age to help push as much of that silence back as possible.

He thinks of burning his hands on the stove over and over again. Of learning to clean and cook and sew little by little, with mistake after mistake, because there was never anyone else around to do it for him or to teach him and he had no choice but to power through on his own.

Thinks of years of wearing his knuckles bloody against tree trunks and training logs as he tried his best to get stronger, to be _better_ , but only making so much progress because no one would ever just _teach_ him.

Naruto thinks about failing the genin exam over and over again because reading was so _hard_ sometimes and no one would take the two minutes necessary to explain to him _why_ his clones didn’t turn out right.

But, most of all, Naruto thinks of the whispers and the cold stares that followed him everywhere. Thinks of the open disdain and ridicule, of over priced food and under quality supplies, of the restaurants and stores he’s never been allowed into.

Thinks of families pulling their children away from him like he’s _sick_ or _filthy_ with something they don’t want to catch.

He thinks about how much it had all _hurt_ , about how it all _still_ hurts almost more than he can describe.

He would have rather lived _every day_ as his parent’s son, even with the threat of an assassination hanging over his head, instead of existing in the bubble of cold isolation he’d grown up in.

The one he is, despite everything, despite small flashes of hope, mostly still living in.

 _‘Yeah,’_ he thinks wildly, more bitter and vicious than he’s ever allowed himself to be, _‘that worked out just fine.’_

“There’s more,” Tsunade breaks into his thoughts then. “More that you need to know. History around what happened the night you were born, and the truth about your mother. If you think you can handle it now?”

Naruto doesn’t move except to nod. Tsunade’s hand is rubbing slow, gentle circles on his back and he’s not eager to lose that bit of comfort. That bit of grounding touch that no one’s ever given to him before.

Plus he wants this _done_. Wants this over with and finished so that maybe, just maybe, he can crawl back to his apartment and lock himself away for a little while.

Just for a bit.

Just until he feels like he can really process everything he’s learned and everything that is still to come.

“Okay brat,” Tsunade accepts his decision easily enough. “Then just … hold it together as best you can and I’ll make this quick.”

Naruto nods again. It seems to be all he can do at the moment.

“Your mother’s name was Kushina,” Tsunade says softly. “Uzumaki Kushina, and she was a force to be reckoned with who loved you with everything she was.”

 _‘Kushina_ ,’ Naruto mouths the name to himself silently because it’s one he’s never heard before. ' _Uzumaki Kushina.'_

It’s strange to hear what has always been his name attached to someone else.

Especially this faceless woman who had, apparently, given birth to him.

Who, if Tsunade is to be believed, had also _loved him_.

And she is as far as Naruto’s concerned, _to be believed_ that is. He trusts Tsunade more now than he’s ever trusted anyone because, for the first time in his entire life, she’s given him the _truth_.

 _‘That’s two’_ , Naruto thinks with a jagged sort of giddiness. _‘That’s two people who loved me, even if only for a moment. Even if only before I was born. Even if one of them sealed the fox inside of me they still loved me.’_

“It’s true that you look like your father,” Tsunade tells him. “But when you talk? That vibrant spirit of yours? The way you _move_? That … that’s all _Kushina_. Others might not agree with me but I think … I think you’re your mother’s son above all else, Naruto. And she, both of them, would be so _proud_ of you.”

Naruto’s shoulders jerk, curling forward as he clutches at his vest and brings it up to press against his chest.

It does nothing to stem the sharp lancing pain in his heart.

“Kushina came to Konoha when she was younger,” Tsunade keeps going. “And she came to carry a burden that the Uzumaki line has always been _uniquely_ suited for.”

Naruto clenches his eyes closed and shakes his head just a bit in denial because he know, somehow he instinctively _knows_ , where this is going.

“You are the third jinchūriki of the Kyūbi,” Tsunade says and Naruto feels a part of him shatter even further. “You carry the fox like Kushina did before you and like Uzumaki Mito before her. It’s a … legacy of sorts for the Uzumaki Clan.”

Naruto’s mind grinds to a halt, his entire being pushing past the mention of the fox and latching onto those two words instead.

Legacy. _Clan_.

Because to him they both mean the same thing.

The most important thing.

 _Family_.

“Are there more of, of _me_?” Naruto manages to ask as he stares up at her. “More Uzumaki? You said … you said _Clan_ and I _know_ that means _family_ so that means, that means there has to be more than just _me_ right? _Cause you said Clan_.”

But Naruto knows the answer already, can tell by that same tired and achingly _sad_ look on her face.

“They’re gone aren’t they?” Naruto asks as he feels that small sprig of hope inside of him wither and die.

“I’m not sure,” Tsunade tells him. “The world’s a big place after all but by all accounts Kushina was the last true Uzumaki we knew of. And there’s never been so much as a _whisper_ of the Uzumaki being revived. Except for you.” 

“How ...” Naruto takes a second to breathe past his disappointment, “how did it happen?”

And, like with everything else he’s asked her today, Tsunade tells him.

Tells him about Uzushiogakure. About the sun and salt soaked village tucked away and protected by the eddies and the whirling tides. About how it had stood proud and strong despite its size. How it has always been Konoha’s sister village.

She tells him about the Uzumaki Clan too. About the Clan, _his Clan_ , that had once stood as the heart of an entire village.

She tells him about their legacy of potent life forces, of abundant chakra, of vibrant red hair, and powerful and complex seals that fell from their fingertips as easily as breathing.

Tsunade sits beside him, one hand on his shoulder and sorrow in her eyes, and tells him about his _family_.

And then she tells him the rest.

 _‘Fear and ignorance’_ , Naruto mind echos Tsunade’s earlier word as, tears dripping down his face, she tells him about how the entire village and _his Clan_ fought and bled and _died_.

How they fought to the very last and never _broke_. Not even as outside forces ripped them down and then finally _apart_ all for the crime of being different.

“Sensei was … inconsolable for a long time,” Tsunade tells him. “He sent word out as far as he could that any survivors would be welcomed here but … no one came. Either they had no trust in Konoha’s already failed protection and chose to go into hiding or …”

“Or no one made it out,” Naruto finishes the thought, throat tight and mind hazy.

“Yes,” Tsunade agrees, “or no one made it out.”

Naruto tries to wrap his mind around that. Around the idea or an entire Clan, an entire _village_ , an entire way of _life_ , being decimated so thoroughly that it was possible no one at all had survived.

It seems almost … _unimaginable_.

But it still _happened_.

In this moment Naruto thinks he understands Sasuke better than ever before.

Understands _Haku_ on a level far deeper than the connection they’d shared in those too brief moments before he’d stepped willingly between Zabuza and death.

They are, or were, the three of them, some of the last pieces of Clans snuffed out through fear and hate and ignorance.

The last bits of legacies left of a people, of a way of life, reduced to nothing more than bones and aching loss.

“There’s more to tell you but,” Tsunade says after the silence has stretched on for a too long moment, “is there anything you want to ask right now?”

There is, _of course_ there is. Naruto has a million and one questions and, given some time, he’s sure he’ll find a million and one more.

But there’s one that sticks out above all the rest.

One that seems more important than the others.

“My _m-mom_? What did she look like?” Naruto whispers the question because he wants to _know_. He’s seen his fa-, Min-, the _Yondaime’s_ face carved into the mountainside above the village every single day for his entire life.

But before today he’d never even heard his mother’s _name_. Had never knew there was once an entire _Clan_ who carried the same name as she did, as he does.

Beside him Tsunade sucks in a sharp breath and the hand on his back stills for a split second.

“Oh kid,” Tsunade leans against him just a bit, forehead pressed against the plane of his shoulder. “There are pictures and things that were collected and kept safe in that chest right there for you about both of them. Things I think you might want to look at on your own. But I can tell you that she had hair as red as an Uzushio sunset and she was _beautiful_.”

 _‘It’s not enough,’_ Naruto thinks, just a bit petulantly, _‘not nearly enough.'_

He wants to know _everything_ about her. Wants to know about her eyes and her laugh and the way she _smelled_.

It’s not enough.

And yet …

It’s still more than he’s ever had before.

And that makes it _precious_.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our baby boi and the Best Hokage(TM) handle a pressing issue between them.

[ _**Pinterest** _ ](https://www.pinterest.com/rayshippou/team-uzumaki/)

~~~

Naruto barely remembers the walk back to his apartment.

All he remembers is the warm press of Tsunade’s arms, the scent of sake and mint engulfing him as she carried him, and the weight of the sealed chest balanced against his stomach.

That and the feel, the taste, of _his mother’s name_ in his mouth as he whispered it over and over again to himself.

Because he has that now. Has a _mother_ who had a _name_. And he doesn’t want to spend another second without that knowledge, that _gift_ , held close to all of the small, _aching_ , parts of him he’s always tried so hard to hide.

Because he’s Uzumaki Naruto, son of Uzumaki Kushina and last of the Uzumaki Clan.

And that?

 _That means something_.

In some ways it means _everything_ to Naruto.

Because it's proof that he wasn’t a _mistake_ , wasn’t the son of traitors or deserters, wasn’t a monster born from monsters.

Naruto had a _family_ once, had parents who had wanted him, _loved_ him. He was born into a Clan that had lived and fought and _died_ with all the rage of the whirling sea, and nothing can _ever_ take that away from him.

And, as the world closes in around the edges, as exhaustion and shock tug him down further and further, _that_ is the fact that Naruto pulls close to his chest and clings to with all of his might.

~~~

Naruto comes back to himself some time later. His apartment’s dark around him except for the glow of the lights from the village spilling in through his old, scavenged curtains.

The scent of green things, of flowers and growing things, and the underlying hint of musk and what Naruto now knows is _fox_ , is heavy in the air as always. A testament to the mark he’s put on his ragged little corner of territory, of all the time he spends in his apartment and his ever growing collection of meticulously cared for plants.

He's always loved them, his collection of ferns and flowers and whatever other odds and end plants he could snatch up off the Yamanaka Flower's clearance shelf or managed to stumble across in the village. He'd gotten in trouble more than once for stealing half dead potted plants off of doorsteps but it had never mattered to him.

Naruto's never liked seeing abandoned things and it's always been comforting, having so many green things in his tiny apartment. In a lot of ways those plants were his first and only friends for so long.

But when Naruto shifts just a bit on his bed something else catches his attention.

A puff of scent, warm sake and mint, wafts up at him from his clothes.

 _Tsunade_.

Naruto can’t resist the urge to bring his arm up to his face and chase that scent just a bit.

It’s so rare for him to smell like anyone else, for anyone to get close enough, long enough, to leave an imprint of themselves on him like this.

Training is different, the small bursts of often violent contact only leaving scattered hints of scent that never linger long. Ten minutes after training is done each day is all it takes before Naruto can barely pick up his team’s scent on himself, the markers he associates with each of them drifting away in the breeze like they were never there.

It always makes him feel even more alone somehow, that lack of a lingering presence from the people who should be such a large part of his life. It had been the same in the Academy when so much of his class had smelt like traces of family and _home_.

Only he and Sasuke had ...

Naruto gives his head a rough shake and then reaches up to tug harshly at his hair to help himself focus.

That’s when he spots his vest sitting, neatly folded, beside his alarm clock on the rickety cabinet that doubles as his nightstand, a folded piece of paper resting on top of it.

And there, resting on the floor beside his bed, is the sealed chest.

Naruto only hesitates for a moment before he sits up, feet dangling over the edge of his bed, and reaches out to pick up the note.

 _‘Brat,’_ Tsunade’s surprisingly elegant and recognizable writing reads, _‘get some rest. I’m sending Hatake out tonight so you’ve got the next two days off training. Blood will get you through the seals on the chest. You know where to find me when you have more questions. No matter what time it is, I’ll be here.’_

There’s no signature, just a small, out of character doodle of a slug at the bottom that actually makes Naruto smile.

The note gets carefully folded and slipped beneath the uneven leg of his clock. He’ll put it away later, in the box he keeps hidden beneath the loose board in his small wardrobe. It’s where he keeps all of his most precious memories, like the one test he got a perfect score on while still in the Academy and the ticket stub for the movie the old man was supposed to take him to see back when he was nine or ten.

They never actually went to that movie but Naruto, not allowed in the theater on his own, had kept the ticket until it had expired before he'd packed it away with his other treasures.

He’d been disappointed of course but the joy he’d carried for months before that at the thought alone of seeing a movie with the old man had been almost worth it.

For a long moment Naruto just sits there, shoulders hunched and feet dangling off of the side of his old, squeaky bed and thin mattress, as he stares at the chest on the floor.

He wants to open it right now, wants to cuts his palm open and slap his bloody hand against every single seal on it until it opens up and reveals to him all of the secrets it carries.

All of the secrets about his _father_ and _mother_.

All of the secrets it might be hiding about _him_.

But, at the same time, it seems like too much.

It feels as if the world’s spinning too fast and moving too slow all at once. Like his head’s stuffed full of wool and his chest is a size too tight. His bones feel like they’re too heavy to move and like every breath he takes could spawn a hurricane.

It’s a familiar feeling so Naruto does what he always does when the worst of his bad days come around.

He grabs his thin orange blanket and one pillow, bundles them together, and then lets himself slide off the side of his bed and onto the cold wooden floor.

A quick roll has Naruto tucked safe and secure underneath his bed, the still darkness that greats him more of a comfort than the open, _vulnerable_ feeling that being out and about in his small apartment gives him in these moments.

Naruto lays there, cocooned in darkness, with his jacket sleeve pressed against the lower half of his face as he stares at the bottom half of the chest.

Soothed by the slowly fading scent of sake and mint Naruto finally drifts back off.

~~~

Dawn comes, the more respectable parts of the village coming to life in the distance as the Lotus District that blooms right around the corner from Naruto’s apartment building settles down a bit for the day.

Not that it ever really _sleeps_ of course. The day is just a different kind of busy in the Lotus District, calmer with more cleaning and care being done than anything else.

Up above the bed his alarm clock rings but a quick twist of chakra has a clone shutting it up only a few seconds later and then puffing back out of existence.

The time for him to meet up with his team comes and goes but Naruto doesn’t move from his spot beneath the bed.

No one shows up, no one comes looking for him or knocks on his door and asks where he’s at.

But then Naruto wasn’t actually expecting them to. Tsunade gave them the next two days off after all and Naruto doesn’t exactly see his team outside of training. Unless occasionally passing them on the street is supposed to count for anything.

He’s actually pretty sure that Kakashi-sensei’s the only one on his team who actually knows where he lives anyways. Even if the man never really comes around either.

Or, at least, he never lets _Naruto_ know if he comes around.

Naruto’s only ever caught Kakashi-sensei’s scent, something that reminds him of thunderstorms and a hint of something almost _feral_ , in his place twice. There was the time the old man must have brought Kakashi-sensei to see his apartment, the scent of pipe smoke and ink had been heavy in the air that day alongside what Naruto had later realized was Kakashi-sensei's scent. Beyond that there’d been a vegetable basket left on his kitchen table once not too long after they’d become an official team.

Naruto had hoped that basket, that completely unexpected _gift_ , was a sign of things changing, of someone finally actually _caring_ , but it had only happened the once. Beyond that Naruto’s never scented Kakashi-sensei in or around his place.

Naruto still has the puppy printed ribbon the basket had been tied with tucked away with his other treasures though.

Now, with Jiraiya gone, Iruka-sensei at the Academy along with Konohamaru and his squad, Tsunade in her office, and Teuchi and Ayame doubtlessly hard at work already at the stand, there’s not actually anyone left who might come looking for him.

No one else who'd notice if Naruto decided to just ... never leave his safe spot again.

That thought in mind Naruto just rolls over, puts his back to the chest, and closes his eyes again.

This time he doesn’t fall asleep but he does lay there in silence, arms wrapped tightly around himself and hands buried in his own hair, for the longest time.

~~~

Later Naruto manages to piece himself back together enough to drag himself out of his safe place. The lure of the chest, of the knowledge, the _secrets_ , it contains finally too much for him to ignore.

Stripped down to his undershirt and his lone pair of black shorts, plants watered and jump suit set aside in his tiny bathroom to be washed later, Naruto gnaws on the inside of his jaw hard enough to taste blood as he stares at the chest settled across from him on the floor.

“Uzumaki Kushina,” Naruto mutters to himself and then, after a breathless sort of pause, “ _M-Mom_.”

The name tastes like sunlight on the back of Naruto's tongue even if the _title_ still sits awkwardly in his mouth.

But it's enough to push him forwards, that reminder of her. Because Naruto wants to see her, wants to _know_ her at least as much as he’s spent his entire life knowing his fat- knowing Min-, knowing the _Yondaime_.

Wants something to help erase the bitterness of that particular truth from his mind and his heart, or to, at the very least, temper it a bit.

Something to make it easier to stomach, easier to live with.

Forcing himself to take deep and even breaths, Naruto brings up a hand that shakes and, with a quick flash of sharp claws against giving skin, slams a bloody palm against the center of the largest seal.

There’s a second's calm and then Naruto has to squint against the sudden blossoming of red-gold light as the seals seem to come to life, chakra arcing off of them as they burn away one by one.

A part of him mourns the loss, the destruction of the seals, the vanishing of those bits and pieces of something that’s the legacy of _his Clan_.

The rest of him is already on edge as he brings his already healed hand up to push the lid from the chest.

It hits the floor with a clatter and Naruto is left staring down at at least two dozen or so fat scrolls, all edged in reds or golds or greens or blues.

Sealing scrolls.

At least, Naruto can’t help but think with some degree of humor, he heals fast enough that he won’t have to worry about blood loss or infection or anything else as he opens them all.

Because he’s going to open them all, every single one.

This is his _family_ , his history, and Naruto is hungry for every single scrap of it he can get his hands on.

~~~

The first scroll, the one settled place of pride directly on top of the others and edged with a deep leaf green, opens without blood.

But Naruto takes one look at the inside of it, sees the name Namikaze, and he just …

 _He can’t_.

Not right now.

So instead he rolls it back up and sets it carefully to the side.

He’ll get to it, he will.

No matter what he might feel about the man at the moment, the Yondaime was still his … was still a part of Naruto. He'd been Naruto's hero for as long and as far back as he can remember, ever since the old man had first told Naruto about him.

And Naruto has gone so long, too long, without any real ties or connections to ignore one now.

So he'll read it, will learn everything it might tell him from front to back.

He _will_.

Just … not _yet_.

So, with another deep breath, Naruto reaches instead for a thin, red edged scroll with a familiar spiral embossed on both ends and golden tassels hanging from the spindle.

A bloody thumb has it flowing open in his hands and Naruto’s surprised to see what looks like a list or a chart of some sort.

And then he keeps looking and feels his entire being grind to a standstill as he realizes what, _exactly_ , he’s staring at.

He brings a claw tipped finger down to trace the kanji for _Naruto_ before he trails it upwards to trace over _Uzumaki Kushina wed Namikaze Minato_.

And then Naruto traces back even further, the scroll slowly unrolling as more and more names appear.

Dozens and dozens of names he’s never seen before, marriages and children written down one after the other in the same elegant, artistic hand.

He sees _Uzumaki Arashi_ and _Uzumaki Fuso_. Sees _Uzumaki Akane_ and _Uzumaki Taki_. Sees _Ayumi_ and _Miyu._ Sees _Nanami_ and _Kaito_ and _Sho. Kishiko_ and _Ran._ _Mizuko_ and _Hamako_. _Umiko_ and _Nagisa_ and _so many more_.

Somehow, Naruto realizes as awe and something that feels almost like devastation flows through him, somehow, someway, this is his _family_.

His Clan, listed out before him in elegant, artistically flowing script.

It's a list of people he'll never meet but who Naruto already _loves_ with a vicious sort of intensity because it doesn't matter who they were in life, not now, not to him. In this moment all that matters to Naruto is that, in some small way, they were _his_.

And then his finger stops, attention abruptly frozen over a single name.

_Senju Tsunade._

Heart pounding, Naruto traces the line, back one generation and then another.

And that's when he finds it.

_Senju Hashirama._

Naruto can't bite back the way he whines, high and hurt in the back of his throat, because there, directly beside the former Hokage, _beside Tsunade's grandfather_ , and written in vibrant red ink, is yet another all too familiar name.

One who is just as much a part of the the legacy he carries as Kushina once was.

 _‘Uzumaki Mito wed,’_ the artistic script spells out clearly, _‘Senju Hashirama.’_

Naruto’s moving before he even realizes it, sandals forgotten, scroll rolled up and held tightly but carefully in his hand.

Anger and _agonizing hurt_ warring in his heart Naruto throws himself out of his window and heads directly for Hokage Tower.

~~~

Tsunade’s waiting for him when he bursts in through the window, the office empty except for her and a small stack of sake bottles set off to the side.

“Naru-,” Tsunade goes to speak but Naruto cuts her off.

“You’re an Uzumaki,” Naruto pants as he slams the scroll down on the desk in front of her. “ _You’re my family and you didn’t tell me_.”

Tsunade, eyes wide, reaches out to take the scroll from the desk and carefully unrolls it.

“ _Oh_ ,” she breathes, “Kushina’s register.”

“You’re on there and it says …” Naruto can barely force the words out because _how could she?_ He’d _trusted_ her and _how could she? "_ _Uzumaki Mito_ , it’s _says_...”

“I know what it says,” Tsunade interrupts softly, carefully, as she smooths her hands gently across the surface of the scroll and then, after a moment's pause, carefully re-rolls it. “I was with Kushina when she wrote a large portion of it, Sensei too. After Uzushio was … after the village fell … she threw herself into writing down everything she could remember. This was a part of it, a new Uzumaki Clan Register, or as close as she could get it."

That almost ancient seeming sort of aching sadness from before is back in Tsunade's expression then.

"She added every Clan member she could remember, every whispered name or story she could recall no matter how distant." Tsunade's smile is pained. "She wanted, _needed_ , some sort of record. Something to remember them all by. She became ... frantic about holding onto what bits of her Clan that she could to the point that she kept her name when she married Minato to keep that tie as well as for secrecy. And then, when she got pregnant with you, she immediately added your name to the register too. Minato and her hadn’t settled yet on what family name you’d carry and then, well ...”

 _‘And then they’d died and it was too late and it all became a moot point,’_ that’s what Tsunade doesn’t say.

Because that's exactly what had happened. Naruto’s parents had died and the old man had named him Uzumaki anyways and the entire debate had no longer mattered.

Tsunade sighs then and when she looks up her eyes are sorrowful and her normally smooth brow is once again furrowed.

“You’re right, Naruto, the Senju and the Uzumaki _are_ connected,” Tsunade agrees with him gently, tentatively. “You and I are _connected_ in more ways than one. And I understand why you’re angry with me, I do, but I need you to _listen_.”

Naruto’s breath catches yet again, heart stuttering, because he’d come here angry, had come here raging and hurt, devastated and betrayed, and, once again, Tsunade is reacting like no one else ever has.

Not with _him_.

No, Naruto’s anger has always been a thing to either be ignored, disapproved of, or, as he now knows, monitored out of _fear_.

No one has ever just … accepted it before.

So he gives her the calmest nod he can manage at the moment.

“I am _not_ an Uzumaki.” Tsunade tells him gently. “Even though Kushina added me to the scroll I’ve always been Senju to the core and in all the ways that might count. It’s a heritage, a legacy, that I carry proudly as the official last of my line. But there _is_ Uzumaki blood in my veins because my grandmother was Uzumaki Mito. That makes us … cousins of a sort.”

“ _Why_?” Naruto rasps the question out, agony thick and heavy in his voice. Throbbing with every beat of his racing heart. “ _Why didn’t you tell me?_ "

“I wasn’t trying to keep it from you, Naruto,” Tsunade leans forward, expression earnest. “I would have told you, soon, if you hadn’t mentioned it yourself, you have to know that. I just … so much has happened so quickly that I guess I ... wanted to give you _time_.”

“I didn’t need _time_ ,” Naruto bites out, chest heaving and claws biting deep into the palms of his hands. “I _never_ needed time. Time’s all I’ve ever had. I needed _family_. _I needed you_.”

The words ring out with a cutting sort of desperation, true and raw and _aching_.

They both know what he’s talking about. Know that this anger goes deeper than just this moment.

It sits there between them, the ugly truth crouched like a _demon_ in the space that separates them.

Their connection, no matter how distant it might be.

Tsunade’s emotional cowardice and her prolonged absence from the village.

_Naruto’s abandonment._

“I know,” Tsunade breathes the agreement out, mouth trembling just a bit before she firms it into a straight line.

And in that moment Naruto is stuck speechless by the realization that her eyes are bright with unshed tears.

“I know you did.” Tsunade repeats roughly. “I know the entire village needed me but _you_ needed me most of all. And even though I’ve always been more Senju than anything I think you’re a _true_ Uzumaki in all of the ways that count. And I, I should have been _here_ to help you realize that sooner.”

Tsunade’s hands come up, arms reaching out towards him across her desk as she leans forward enough to cup Naruto’s face in her palms. Her thumbs are gentle as she swipes them across his cheekbones, clearing away the tears and unphased by the sensitive whisker marks there that no one else but Naruto has ever touched.

Until her.

In such a short time Tsunade has become so many firsts for Naruto.

Has given him so much, more than almost anyone else in his entire life.

And that's a fact that causes the hurt and the anger to abruptly gutter out in his chest, the flames of it swallowed by the roiling sea of everything else.

“I’m sorry I missed out on so much of your life, Naruto.” Tsunade almost whispers to him. “I’m sorry I was too bitter and angry and _afraid_ to do what I should have done even though I _thought_...”

And Naruto suddenly can’t take it anymore.

Can’t stand here and let her look like this, sad and hurt and _tired_ like this.

Not over him.

Not _because_ of him.

So he pulls back and away from her.

But before the quickly blossoming hurt on her face can take root Naruto moves around the desk and then surges forward towards her again in one quick rush.

Naruto pushes himself into her space and reaches up to throw his arms around her shoulders, pulling her forward in her chair in one swift motion until her head is resting against his chest.

A mirror of what she’d done for him only a day or so before.

“It’s okay,” Naruto breathes the words out as he presses his face against the silk of her hair, as he breathes in mint and sake and something that almost whispers _safety_ in the back of his mind. Almost. “I forgive you.”

 _‘I love you,’_ Naruto doesn’t say, _can’t_ say. _‘You’re my family, and you gave me my history, and I forgive you because I love you and I protect what I love. Just don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me again. I’ve been so alone for so long.’_

He can’t bring himself to say the words, to admit to any of it, to make himself that vulnerable in this moment, not even here with her.

So he tries to pour those words, those thoughts and emotions, into his arms, into his very chakra, into everything else about him instead.

Pressed against his chest Tsunade shakes in his hold just once.

Then her arms come up to wrap around his waist and back, a hand coming up to bury itself in the back of his hair.

“I’m here now,” Tsunade whispers against his shoulder. “I’m here now and I’m never leaving again.”

In that moment Naruto hears those words as the promise, the _vow_ , that they are.

A vow like nothing else anyone in his life has ever given him.

And it doesn’t erase the years of hurt and loneliness, doesn’t make up for the years of hollow sadness and aching pain, but …

 _Well_.

It’s a _start_.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're moving along but we're gonna be picking up the pace here soon. Just remember, we're building a Foundation here and that takes time.

Once he leaves the Tower Naruto takes to the rooftops and heads directly home.

He makes it back in record time, slipping through the window he’d left open and past his regular series of traps with ease.

He pulls the window closed behind him, locks it, and then jerks the tattered curtains shut as well for good measure.

Then he forces himself to head back over to the chest still sitting open on the floor beside his bed.

“I can do this,” Naruto reassures himself as he drops down onto the floor in front of the chest again. “I’m gonna do this.”

He takes a moment to just breathe, to reach one hand up and tug lightly at his hair as he counts the swirls in the wood of the chest. When his heart no longer feels as if it’s going to pound out of his chest, Naruto finally makes himself put the register scroll to the side, laying it on the floor beside the green edged scroll from before.

And then, with a deep, bracing breath, Naruto rallies his determination and reaches over to pull a new scroll from inside of the chest.

He has a lot to get through and only roughly two days to do it before he has to meet his team again.

Naruto’s determined that he’s not leaving his apartment again until he’s read each and every scroll all the way through at least once.

So, given how unkind to Naruto reading tends to be, there’s really no time to waste.

~~~

Four hours and only two painstakingly read scrolls later, one of which was filled with _sketches of Uzushio_ which had only made him cry yet again, Naruto wishes there was a way for him to do this _faster_.

Because as much as a part of him relishes each and every moment spent slowly reading through the scrolls, as thankful as he is to even have these scrolls in the first place, he wants this over with.

It’s not because every little thing he’s learning isn’t fascinating, and it’s not because the sight of _his mother’s_ beautiful handwriting isn’t enough to make him want to cry all over again every time he stops to think about it.

Naruto wants this done and over with because he only has _two days_ before he has to go back out into the village to meet his team again.

Two days before he has to face the world again knowing what he knows now.

Two days and at least twenty or so fat scrolls still left for him to get through.

It’s not enough time, not for someone like him.

All the determination in the world won’t make him _smarter_ , won’t make him read better or faster.

And Naruto _hates_ that, hates that maybe, in this area at least, he really is as stupid as everyone has always said he is, hates the way even thinking that makes him _feel_.

But the larger part of Naruto, the part that’s used to pushing those thoughts down and away to deal with later when it’s _safe_ , doesn’t care one way or the other because, stupid or not, he just wants to _know_.

He wants to move beyond this part, wants to get through this thing that makes him feel so _useless_ that he wants to scream because he knows reading shouldn’t be this hard, shouldn’t take this long.

But kanji are _hard_ and Naruto has to read everything at least twice before he can concentrate on what’s being _said_ instead of what each word actually _is_.

It’s yet another reasons why tests were always so bad for him at the Academy. And it’s the main reason why he took so long to learn how to make shadow clones that night in the forest.

He’d spent far more time reading and rereading the scroll, figuring out the kanji and the instructions, than he had actively practicing the jutsu.

So Naruto wants to get passed this part, passed the learning phase and on to the _knowing_ , on to the _doing_.

He's always been better at putting thought and determination into motion because even with no one to actually _teach_ him Naruto's always been able to muddle through on his own when it comes to physical things.

Because as the Academy taught him, Naruto can take a hit and get back up. Over and over again. While the others had style, had training, had technique, Naruto had the ability to push pain down and away and to _always get back up_.

But none of that will help him now, not with this, not really.

Naruto wishes there was someone in his life who could just read these to him.

But, Tsunade’s reminder that she’s available if he has questions aside, Naruto knows that’s not really an option for him. The only other two people he’d even think to ask, Iruka-sensei and old man Teuchi, are always busy.

Just the thought of going to them and then being turned down and being waved off over something like this, something so important to him ...

Naruto would rather not face even the possibility of that kind of rejection right now.

And besides them Gaara, the only person close to his own age that Naruto would even _consider_ asking for something humiliating like this, is back home in Suna. And since that's not actually something that would work out Naruto doesn't let himself dwell on it for too long.

So, with no viable options for help, Naruto can’t help but wish that there was some way for him to read all of these scrolls himself at the same time.

_If only there were more of hi-_

Naruto freezes.

Goes completely and utterly _still_.

Because it can’t be that simple.

It _can’t_.

The answer to his problem can’t be something he _already knows_.

The solution to his entire issue can’t be something as simple as _shadow clones_.

It can’t be that easy. Not for Naruto. Nothing is _ever_ that easy for him.

But then, the more Naruto actually takes a moment to consider it, the more sense it begins to make even to him.

Naruto knows that he can remember the stuff his clones do in battle. He might be _stupid_ but he doesn't think he's actually _that stupid_. He’s not just overlooking entire portions of the fights he’s been in, not ignoring the fact that he knows what it feels like to hit someone from four different directions all at once.

But then, all of that aside, maybe Naruto _is_ that stupid because he’d never thought to try and use his clones outside of a fight or the more physical aspects of training.

Had never even thought to see if that memory sharing he’s experienced in the past would translate into other situations too.

Naruto, unfortunately, can’t remember what the scroll he’d stolen had said about the jutsu in enough detail either. He’d only skimmed over the description long enough to know what it was and that it wouldn’t outright kill him. At the time that had been all the information he’d needed to press onward, head clouded with one part hope and one part desperation.

That night, more determined than he’d ever been in his life, Naruto had mainly focused his attention on reading, understanding, and then actually _learning_ the steps to perform and, hopefully, mastering the technique.

Everything else had just ... fallen to the wayside of Naruto’s mind because all that had mattered was that one bright gleam of hope that he'd _finally_ be able to graduate.

But, in the aftermath of everything, the Old Man had pulled Naruto aside to talk about his new jutsu. He’d explained to Naruto that he wasn’t allowed to teach it to anyone because it could _kill_ them. He’d even asked Naruto if he noticed anything _unusual_ about the technique and had only hummed, nodded, and then shooed him off when Naruto had said _no_.

Sarutobi had never said anything about memories or using it to train or _anything_ like that at all.

So if there was a way to study, to get better at reading and writing and a million other things Naruto’s always been bad at, then why didn’t he say so?

He would have said something. All the other secrets Sarutobi might have hidden from him aside Naruto _knows_ that he would have told him something so simple and _useful_. Something that could have been helping Naruto this entire time to get stronger, smarter, _better_.

The Old Man would have told Naruto.

_Right?_

And if not the Old Man then Ero-sennin who’d let him sign the toad scroll and taught him the building blocks of Rasengan. Or even Kakashi-sensei who’s proven that he knows the jutsu too and so should know if something like that is possible.

Tsunade’s already told Naruto so much more than everyone else ever has so he’s not counting her. Naruto knows he would probably forgive her almost anything anyways by this point, but the others ...

_One of them would have said something, would have helped him._

And that thought stops Naruto in his tracks all over again.

Halts him like a blow to the temple because …

_Would they though?_

Brows furrowed, hands kneading at his pants legs, and teeth biting down sharply on his lower lip, Naruto forces himself to stay as calm as possible and to keep really _thinking_ about it.

Because that is the question isn’t it?

Would anyone besides Tsunade have told him something important like that?

Has anyone besides Iruka-sensei that night in the forest and Tsunade _ever_ taken the time to tell him something important, something impactful to or about _him specifically_ , in the past?

Sarutobi had known the two biggest secrets in Naruto’s life, had known the details about the two things that have shaped and molded him in ways not even Naruto had been aware of at the time, and he’d said _nothing_.

He’d let Naruto wonder and yearn and _hurt_ for years without ever saying anything.

Even Iruka-sensei, one of the brightest spots in his entire life, and all the other adults around him had known secrets about Naruto that he himself hadn’t been allowed to know.

Secrets he has still spent his _entire life_ being punished for in one way or another.

Naruto had to find out about the kyūbi, about the bijū contained inside his body and wrapped around his soul, about the very reason why the majority of the village _hates_ him, from a _traitor_.

So could he trust them, any of them, to tell him something important like this? Something helpful and useful about the technique that’s become the cornerstone of his fighting style so far?

Naruto wants to say yes. He wants so desperately to believe that the few people in his life haven’t bothered to tell him about something like this, haven’t even thought to _ask_ , because they thought he knew.

He wants to believe that.

And yet ...

A twist of chakra has a clone at his side, has it bending down to pick up a scroll Naruto hasn’t opened yet and heading into the tiny chipped bathroom and shutting the door behind it.

He doesn’t have to tell it what he wants it to do. The clone's just an echo of Naruto after all and he had a direct order in mind when he created it.

So, eyes fixed on the door and heart pounding, Naruto just waits.

Minutes pass, the door opens and then closes again, the clone moves across the small space and puts the scroll carefully in Naruto’s outstretched hand.

Then, with a vicious downwards slice of a clawed hand, it dispels itself.

For a long moment Naruto just sits there and does his best to _breathe_.

And then Naruto opens the scroll.

Staring up at him is a perfectly drawn Uzumaki spiral and, a finger length or so below that, is Kushina’s beautiful handwriting proclaiming _Uzumaki Style Fried Rice_ and a tiny doodle of a frying pan off to the side.

The laugh Naruto chokes out sounds more like a sob.

Because it’s a _recipe_ , the entire scroll is a _cookbook_. From his _mom_. He’ll get to taste her cooking, or as close as he can ever get to it.

And even though this is the first time Naruto’s ever held this scroll in his actual hands it’s the _second_ time he’s seen that little doodle, the _second_ time he’s read the first two lines of this recipe.

_It worked._

The clone read the scroll and _Naruto remembered it_.

And that?

That changes _everything_.

~~~

“Need some blood Boss,” the voice of one of his clones manages to pull Naruto up just a bit out of the daze he’s managed to fall into.

Naruto doesn’t even bother to look up, just sticks his arm out to his side and lets the clone nick him with a careful claw. The cut’s healed almost as soon as it’s made and Naruto turns his complete attention back to what he’s doing.

The clone wanders off, back to its corner and its assigned scroll just like the other two dozen or so clones crowded into Naruto’s small bedroom. It’s all a part of his newly developed system to move through the scrolls as quickly as possible while still actually getting to read and understand each one.

Each clone has a scroll that they’ve been assigned to read. They dispel when finished, the memories transmit, and then one of the two _'management clones'_ replaces them with a fresh clone to reread the scroll again.

It had seemed overly complicated in the beginning but it’s been working out as far as Naruto can tell.

Because here in the safety of his apartment, surrounded by himself and with a peaceful sort of humming background noise from so many bodies in so little space, Naruto is actually learning.

He’s _remembering_ and understanding and _learning_ bit by bit with every reread of every scroll.

It feels good too. Feels like getting his vest had felt.

Like proof that he isn’t useless, isn’t a hopeless, empty headed dead last of a demon boy after all.

Like proof that all he’s ever needed was time, a little bit of help from, well, himself, and the chance to try things his own way.

A part of him feels a bit bitter though about all the time he’s wasted, all the days, _months, years_ he could have had something like this to help him along.

A part of Naruto can’t help but wonder why the Old Man had never thought to teach him about this before that night in the forest with Mizuki-sensei.

Doesn't understand why, according to Kakashi-sensei, it’s obvious why Naruto couldn’t do a regular clone in the Academy, still can't do one now, but the Old Man had never offered him an alternative like this that could have helped him learn and grow from the very start.

The rest of Naruto thinks he might already know the answer.

He's almost getting used to the flat taste of betrayal that's begun to hover around Sarutobi's memory.

On his personal part though Naruto’s been hunched over one of the larger scrolls for what feels like forever now, painstakingly picking his way through an ocean’s worth of information on fūinjutsu.

It’s all written in Kushina’s flowing script, and worded in a way that, much to Naruto’s surprise, is really interesting and easier to understand than Tsunade had made it out to be. Easier than most anything he’s ever tried to study before to be honest.

“Boss,” another clone calls, voice soft and urgent enough that Naruto finally blinks and pulls his eyes up and away from the scroll.

One of the two dozen clones he’d created is crouched in front of him, eyes bright with what looks like some combination of awe and grief and hands curved carefully around a wide but relatively thin book.

“Mine’s a storage scroll,” the clone tells him. “Got a bunch of clothes and stuff in it. And they _smell_ ...” the clone trails off and takes a deep, unnecessary breath. “Re-sealed those for you for later cause you're gonna want that _scent_ in person but there … there’s _this_ too. You’re gonna want to see it. _Now_.”

Sitting up straighter Naruto puts his scroll down and reaches out to take the book from the clone.

It’s light and bound in red leather of a better quality than anything Naruto’s ever had before in his entire life. When he looks closely he can see a line of tiny symbols neatly pressed into the leather of the book’s spine. Seals of some sort that catch his attention for a long moment.

But then Naruto finally opens the cover of the book and a high pitched, _agonized_ whine rips its way out of him on the next breath.

Because there, staring up at him from a photograph that looks practically brand new, eyes bright and faces creased in joyous smiles, are two people who can only be _his parents_.

They’re arm in arm and they look so _happy_.

But Naruto doesn’t focus on the familiar face of the smiling blond though.

 _Can’t_.

Instead everything about him, all of his attention, all of his heart and mind and _soul_ , are drawn towards the woman.

“ _Beautiful_ ,” Naruto breathes the word out because _oh, oh Tsunade was right_.

Kushina, _his mother_ , was _beautiful_.

Her skin is fair in the photograph, lighter than the golden tone of Naruto’s, but her eyes are darker, and her _hair_...

Her hair is _red_. Red like a sunset, red like the roses Naruto sometimes sees through the windows of Ino’s parent’s flower shop.

 _Uzumaki red_ , Naruto knows now and a part of him mourns the fact that he didn’t get that from her too.

Staring down at her, at the face of _his mother_ , Naruto feels as if his chest might actually burst open this time.

Because after all this time, after all these years of wondering and longing and hurting, _here she is_.

Right here in front of him.

_His mother._

Uzumaki Kushina.

The most beautiful woman in the world.

Free hand coming up to jam his knuckles between too sharp teeth Naruto stares down at the photograph, at that smiling face he'll never get to see in person, and he sobs _and sobs and sobs_.

~~~

When he feels like he can breathe again without shaking apart Naruto manages to uncurl from his ball and turn the page on _his mother_.

Because there are other pictures in the book too and Naruto wants to _see_.

The pictures aren't in any particular sort of order as far as he can tell and sometimes there’s more than one per page. It feels like Kushina was more interested in getting them inside the book than organizing them in any way.

Scroll on fūinjutsu handed off to a fresh clone Naruto takes his time to study each and every one.

There are pictures of people he’s never seen before, shinobi and civilians he’s sure are probably dead and gone.

There are pictures of Kushina standing arm in arm with a woman with long black hair, a Uchiha fan displayed on her collar, and a softly rounded face that practically screams _Sasuke_ to Naruto’s eyes.

There are also pictures of Kushina with Naruto’s fa-, with the _Yondaime_ , in various places around the village. Dates, Naruto guesses, and a few festivals where Kushina practically glows in her kimonos.

And then there’s a page with _team photos_.

There’s just the one page, but it has three photos crowded together on it and the sight of them takes Naruto’s breath away again.

One is of Kushina with the same Uchiha woman and another genin Naruto can’t place, their sensei stands behind and above them, a stern looking woman with green hair, a cutting smirk, and biceps that bulge with muscle.

The next is of a young Yondaime’s genin team. He’s standing, smaller and younger but still unmistakable, sandwiched between two other boys. But what hits home the most for Naruto is that, just behind them, a hand planted firmly in golden hair and a grin stretched across his wide face, is _Jiraiya_.

Naruto had known he'd taught the Yondaime, he'd even taught Naruto one of the man's techniques, but for some reason it's this picture that really drives it home. It also spawns more than one question that Naruto isn't sure he wants to think, much less ask. They taste ugly and bitter on the back of his tongue so he does his best to push them aside for now.

But then there’s the last photo.

“ _Oh_ ,” Naruto whispers as everything makes just a bit more sense to him, as all the pieces finally click firmly into place. “So that’s why he doesn’t like me.”

Because staring up at him from beneath familiar silver hair, both eyes uncovered, with the Yondaime’s hand planted on his head like an echo of Jiraiya, is a much younger and somehow sullen looking Kakashi-sensei.

And when Naruto finally manages to turn the page there’s more pictures with Kakashi-sensei in them. Pictures of the entire team and pictures of just Kakashi standing with the Yondaime or with Kushina or, sometimes, even pictures of the three of them together.

Naruto thinks it might explain a lot about how Kakashi-sensei doesn’t seem to really like him all that much, can’t seem to look at him head on most of the time, and doesn’t seem interested in spending much in the way of time with Naruto.

A part of it might be because he doesn’t think Naruto is actually worth the effort.

A part of it might be because of the kyūbi. 

And, Naruto now knows, a part of it might be because of _this_.

Because the village had lost countless civilians and shinobi when the kyūbi attacked. It had lost a Hokage in the end and Naruto had lost both of his parents before he ever really had a chance to have them but these _pictures_ …

These pictures tell him that Kakashi-sensei lost more than his Hokage that night. Lost more than just friends and comrades and a sensei.

Naruto thinks that, between the two of them, Naruto wasn’t the only one to lose his family that night either.

So maybe that’s why Kakashi-sensei always brushes him off.

Looking at Naruto must remind Kakashi-sensei of everything he’d lost.

Looking at Naruto must be such a disappointment for Kakashi-sensei in so many ways because he'd had the Yondaime once and now all that's left is _Naruto_.

And it hurts, it does. It stings and aches that Naruto will probably never be something, someone, Kakashi-sensei wants to acknowledge, wants to _keep_ but …

 _Well_.

Staring down at his mother's smiling face, thinking about what he'd give to have her at his side for even a _minute_ , Naruto thinks he might understand just a little bit better now.


	5. Chapter 5

Naruto’s two day reprieve manages to pass far too quickly for his tastes.

Even though he refuses to stop to sleep or eat, even though he only pauses long enough to go to the bathroom and gulp water from the faucet when he can’t put it off any longer, it still goes by far too fast.

He spends every single hour of it pouring over the scrolls with his clones, reading and rereading each one until he’s able to remember entire passages word for word from some of them.

He looks at the photo album more times than he can count too, trading it back and forth with this clone or another until every single detail of every single picture is practically burned into his mind’s eye.

It still doesn’t feel like enough, these pale echoes of what could have been if things had been different.

But, well, in this like in so many other situations, it’s all that Naruto has.

~~~

Naruto’s hands shake when he accepts the blue edged scroll from his clone.

There’s a reason why, not counting the green edged scroll from hi- from _the Yondaime_ , Naruto left this one scroll for last.

There’s a reason why he’s waited until now, only hours before he’s supposed to finally meet up with his team again, to open it.

He already knows what he’ll find inside if he can just bring himself to open it in person this time.

One part of Naruto almost dreads it, is almost afraid, but the rest of him …

The rest of Naruto just _yearns_.

So, hands shaking and heart pounding, Naruto bites down on the inside of his jaw and opens the scroll.

And, even though he thought he was at least semi-prepared, what Naruto finds is like a punch to the chest, like the blistering heat of one of Sasuke’s fireballs being forced down his throat.

Because inside of this last scroll, the one he’s been waiting to open until the end, are _clothes_.

Most of them are Kushina’s, short kimono and yukata, a long green apron dress and a small chest of hair pins, ties, and clips. They’re all simple things really, odds and ends obviously gathered after she’d died and placed away for safekeeping despite not actually being valuable.

But each and every one of them holds something beyond precious to Naruto.

Careful of his claws Naruto reaches out and picks up a simple yellow kimono with black stitching and lifts it up.

For a split second Naruto freezes and then he practically lunges forward to bury his face in the fold of the soft cotton collar.

Naruto huffs in deep, almost desperate breaths and does his best not to start crying yet again, does his best not to _wail_.

_He can smell her._

Can pick up traces of what has to be her scent lingering in the fabric of the short kimono he’s clutching to him.

Hints of what he recognizes as sea salt and some kind of flower, the barest hint of a oh so familiar musk.

Kushina.

 _Mom_.

Naruto knows what she smells like now.

~~~

Naruto only lets himself scent the small pile of men’s clothes that were also sealed inside the scroll for a few seconds.

He buries the nose in the collar of a far too familiar cloak and inhales a scent that whispers of sunshine, summer winds, and the faintest but still familiar hint of oil.

Naruto commits the scent to memory, takes it into himself and then buries it _deep_.

One day he’ll be able to come back to it, will be able to _want_ it like he’d wanted Kushina’s, but …

 _Well_.

One day.

~~~

One eye trained on the face of his battered alarm clock, Naruto chews on his lower lip and debates.

His new vest is laid out on his bed and he’s holding the jacket of his jumpsuit in one hand as he stares down at it.

For the first time in his entire life Naruto finds himself indecisive about what he should wear.

His jumpsuit, the first piece of clothing he ever got that was _his_ alone, was made thick and warm and comfortingly _bright_. Even with the way he’d had to learn to patch it up and fix the ripped up seams over the years, it’s always made him feel bigger somehow, made him feel _safer_. Like there was a layer between him and the outside world no matter how many times other people sneered at its color or its puffy collar

For so long now it's been a part of who he is, the jumpsuit. Has been a source of safety and comfort, like he’d always imagined being held would feel like, warm and soft and good.

But now, for the first time, Naruto is reluctant to put it on.

Because, for some reason, it feels like it belongs to someone else now.

Like, somehow, the thick orange jumpsuit belongs to a Naruto that just … doesn’t exist anymore.

Like maybe the memory of Tsunade’s arms wrapped around him and the press of Kushina’s scent into his senses has changed him somehow.

 _Maybe_ , Naruto can’t help but think, _maybe knowing more about those pieces of himself, Uzumaki, son, shinobi, and jinchūriki alike, has changed him just a bit_.

So it hurts just a bit, the thought of setting it to the side after all these years. And it’s almost scary, the thought of going out and about without that familiar layer between him and the world.

But … 

In a lot of ways Naruto’s always been good at dealing with two things.

Pain and fear.

~~~

Naruto can’t help but panic just a bit as he dashes down back alleys and over the rooftops as he speeds towards the bridge to meet his team.

For once it’s not only Kakashi-sensei that’s going to be late to their meetup.

He’d spent so long debating over his clothes that the clone watering his plants had been forced to snap him out of his daze by shoving his alarm clock in his face.

Naruto hadn’t had any more time to debate after that, instead he’d gotten dressed in a whirlwind and thrown himself head first out his apartment window to pelt down the streets towards the bridge.

One hand keeps moving up to press against the thin black hair clip he’d pinned against his right temple and the other keeps drifting towards the inner hidden pocket of his vest.

He’s nervous about seeing his team again, about what he intends to do after training, but with each step Naruto takes the scent of seasalt and some kind of flower wafts up to him from his collar.

And somehow Naruto finds it easier and easier to calm down as the seconds tick by.

He’d been hesitant to wear something of Kushina’s like this, fearful of losing her scent on even one of dozens of outfits, but the idea of having something of hers just a bit closer had been too tempting to pass up in the end.

So, putting those memorized photos to good use, Naruto had done his best to imitate her style before he’d thrown himself out of his apartment.

It’s different from the comfortable familiarity of his jumpsuit but … somehow Naruto likes it more.

By the time he makes it to the bridge his heart’s no longer pounding like it’s trying to escape and his hands have stopped shaking.

He can do this.

This is _his team_ after all.

And … and even if they still don’t really like him all that much _they_ still mean something to Naruto. The team still means something.

All he has to do is keep trying and maybe, just maybe, he’ll mean something to them one day too.

~~~

“What are you wearing?” Sakura’s incredulous question finally cuts through the thick silence that had fallen over the area as soon as Naruto had arrived at the bridge.

Sasuke had taken one look at his vest and _sneered_ , something sharp and unhappy blossoming in his expression.

Sakura had gaped, mouth dropping open and eyes flying wide, right before her expression had turned stormy.

And Kakashi-sensei …

Kakashi-sensei had tracked his one eye over the vest, over Naruto’s yellow kimono with black stitching, over the pin in his hair and the black obi and headband around his waist and gone rigid and _silent_.

Hands tugging at the bottom of his vest, Naruto opens his mouth to answer Sakura’s screeched question only to snap it shut again, unsure for once about what to say.

“ _Naruto_ , you shouldn’t be wearing that,” Sakura stalks forwards, a hand coming up to slam down on the top of Naruto’s head while the other tugs at his vest. “It’s against the rules to wear a chūnin vest if you’re not a chūnin. Whoever you stole this from is gonna get you into _major trouble_ , you idiot.”

“Didn’t steal it,” Naruto finally manages to say, wincing just a bit as he shakes off the ringing in his ears that always follows one of Sakura’s full on punches. Thankfully it never lasts more than a few seconds at most, the pain always fading quickly. “It’s _mine_.”

“Don’t _lie_ ,” Sakura shrills, hair practically standing on end and hands moving to tug more forcefully at the collar of his vest. “You’re just going to make our team look bad, like always, so take it off.”

Naruto, faced with being stripped of something that means so much to him, does something he’s never done to Sakura before.

He reaches up, wraps his hands around her wrists, and jerks her hands off of him.

Sakura goes to jerk out of his grip but the feel of his claws pricking against the thin, vulnerable insides of her wrists seems enough to make her pause.

For a long moment Naruto just stares at her, eyes traking over her face and then flicking behind her to where Sasuke is staring at him with that dark look still in his eyes and Kakashi-sensei is looking off to the side.

Away from Naruto.

 _‘Oh,’_ Naruto thinks softly, just a bit helplessly, something small and aching curling tighter in his chest as he lets Sakura go and then takes a large step back and away from her.

Away from _them_.

“Sakura,” Kakashi-sensei finally speaks up then. But even when Naruto turns to look at him he’s still staring off into the distance. “Naruto isn’t lying. He was promoted to chūnin by Hokage-sama herself for his actions during the invasion. Technically he’s your superior now so you might want to show some respect.”

For a split second Sakura looks absolutely stunned but then Sasuke scoffs, low and dismissive, and she seems to rally.

“How come _Naruto_ got promoted?” The skepticism is clear in Sakura’s voice.

“How come my cute little genin aren’t already partnering up to spar?” Kakashi shoots back, book now firmly in hand as he turns to head further into the training ground, Sasuke on his heels.

“Don’t worry Sasuke-kun,” Sakura immediately switches tracks as she moves to follow, “if an idiot like _Naruto_ made chūnin then I bet they’re going to promote you right up to jōnin soon!”

Left staring at their backs once again all Naruto can do is hold onto his hope that, one day, it will get better.

For some reason it feels far more fragile than it ever has before.

~~~

 _Except_ , Naruto can’t help but think a few hours later, the taste of blood still in his mouth, patches of red skin already healing from Sasuke’s fireball, and an aching sort of awareness beginning to dawn in his soul, _maybe it won’t. Maybe it will never be better_.

Sitting there on the ground, watching his team walk off towards the Hokage Tower for the day’s D rank missions, Naruto can’t stop the way something inside of him just ... _aches_.

~~~

Naruto doesn’t go home that night.

Instead he wanders around the village, slinking over rooftops and down alleyways with a stealth he’s only ever really used for pranks in the past.

But, in the end, when the moon has finally risen high above the village, Naruto finds himself sitting on top of the Shodai’s head.

It’s far from his usual spot but it feels better to Naruto somehow to sit there now, on the monument to the man who’d married _Uzumaki Mito_ herself.

Instead of on …

Naruto shakes the thought off and collapses backwards, head pillowed on his folded arms as he stares up at the night sky.

The sky is so _big_ and Naruto is so _tired_.

But then, as Naruto’s finally beginning to really realize, he’s been tired for a long time now.

Sighing, Naruto reaches into the hidden inner pocket of his vest and carefully pulls out the picture he’d tucked away there before he’d left his apartment.

It’s one of the ones with Kushina, the Yondaime, and Kakashi-sensei in it, one of the ones where they’re standing together like a _family_. Where even Kakashi-sensei is smiling without really smiling, something warm and content in his expression even with the mask on.

Something Naruto’s never seen in person before.

His plan had seemed simple this morning. He was going to wait until after training and then give the photo to his sensei to keep. He doesn’t know if Kakashi-sensei has any pictures like this one but he’d been willing to share what he did have with someone who, if things had been different, might have been a part of Naruto’s family.

Naruto had agonized over the idea of giving it away, one of these precious bits of memory that he’s only just received, but he’d just thought that _maybe_ it would be a big enough gesture to…

Naruto reaches his free hand up and tugs sharply at his hair.

It doesn’t matter now what he’d thought, Kakashi-sensei had barely been able to look at him today, had avoided him even more than he usually did.

Obviously Naruto being promoted to chūnin still isn’t enough to make his sensei think he’s worth his time. Naruto’s honestly not sure what will be. Or if there’s actually anything he’ll ever be able to do to change that.

Because he wasn’t _really_ expecting any of them to be happy for him about his promotion but Naruto has to admit that it would have been ... _nice_. Would have been good to get something, _anything_ , positive from them in return. Even if it was just a smile from Sakura or a nod from Sasuke or even one of Kakashi-sensei’s rare almost compliments or something.

Naruto should have known better than to hope for anything like that.

He should’ve known Sasuke would be angry, should have known Sakura would go along with him.

Should have known that Kakashi-sensei still wouldn’t want to look at him. Especially not over a vest that Kakashi-sensei probably didn’t think Naruto actually deserved.

Or with the way he’d shown up to training dressed like some pale imitation of Kushina, just a dull echo of a woman that had been stolen from the world on the day Naruto was born.

Naruto should have _known_.

So maybe, just maybe, the truth is that Naruto will _never_ be good enough for the things that he wants most.

For this village.

For his team.

For this cobbled together group of people who were supposed to be a _family_ but aren’t. For these people who are so close to Naruto but so far away in all of the ways that matter at the same time. Who don’t seem to really fit together and yet still manage to find a million and one ways to exclude _him_.

Maybe, some tiny part of Naruto can’t help but whisper, just maybe, Naruto will _never_ be good enough for much of anyone in this village at all.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s time Naruto starts thinking about what that _really_ means for him.

Picture tucked back safely away again, Naruto lays there staring up at the stars until he drifts off, cradled by the sky and sung softly into sleep by the gentle breeze.

It’s not like there’s anyone waiting at home for him.

Not really.

Just a variety of houseplants and a box full of memories.

And yet that’s still more than Naruto used to have.

~~~

Naruto drifts back to his apartment the next morning like a ghost, slipping through side streets and over alleys silently just as dawn begins to light up the sky.

His head and his heart both feel ... _heavy_.

When he slips into his window his apartment is silent and still like always.

He heads to the bathroom for a frigid shower and then pads into the kitchen to poke listlessly at a cup of ramen that, for once, doesn't hold much appeal to him.

By the time the suns fully risen and he only has a few hours before he's due to head to training, Naruto finds himself in a familiar position.

Standing at the edge of his bed, Naruto has one hand on his jumpsuit and the other on the now brushed off and clean training kimono he'd worn the day before.

For some reason Naruto feels as if he's standing on the edge of a precipice.

He feels as if this time he's about to make a choice of some kind that goes beyond what he'll wear today.

It's almost as if there's a fork in a road standing right in front of him and the direction he chooses will make all the difference.

Now all Naruto needs to do is pick a path and walk it.

~~~

Naruto is tired of sparring with Sasuke but never really learning anything.

He's tired of being Sakura’s punching bag.

He's tired of being looked _through_ instead of _at_.

He's tired of being ... _less_.

~~~

Naruto doesn’t go to training that day.

Instead of heading off to the bridge Naruto stays in his apartment and spends the day pouring over his scrolls again.

Only this time he’s attempting to put a few of the things he’s already learned into practice.

So, with no company but his clones, Naruto spends his time reading and smearing ink over the tattered blank scrolls he’d fished out of the trash behind the weapon shop closest to his apartment.

He works and works and works until, hours later when it’s dark and _quiet_ in his apartment, he manages to eke out his very first storage seal.

He isn't ashamed of the way he cries when it works for the first time.

It explodes after a few seconds but it _works_ first.

And to Naruto that's really all that matters.

~~~

Naruto stays home the next day too and concentrates on refining the seal, on making it neater and cleaner. He wants it to have the same kind of effortless artistry that the ones in Kushina’s instructions do.

He wants it to be _perfect_.

He'll practice until his hands _bleed_ if he has to.

Naruto has always been expected and willing to pay in blood for the things he wants, the things he values.

This is no different.

At least this connection to Kushina and the Uzumaki Clan itself, this _legacy_ , is worth whatever blood and pain Naruto might have to pay for it in the end.

~~~

The day passes.

Night comes again.

No one comes looking for him.

But then, Naruto never really expected them to anyways.

~~~

His mother's training kimono is soft against his skin.

Every time Naruto moves he can still smell her.

Just a bit.

Sea salt, some kind of flower, and a oh so familiar musk.

Whispers of a woman who had _loved him_ pressed against his skin.

It makes Naruto _smile_ every time.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naruto takes another step down his newly chosen path

“Naruto-kun,” a soft, sweetly chiming voice breaks the silence that’s fallen over the apartment.

Naruto, wrapped in his ragged blanket and tucked away in the safety of the shadows beneath his bed, just huffs and curls up even tighter against the wall.

“Naruto-kun,” the voice calls again even as something soft, cool, and _giving_ , presses against the shell of this ear and then across his cheekbone. “Please wake up, Naruto-kun.”

The unexpected but careful touch is enough to make him shiver and uncurl just a bit.

The gentle pleading of the voice is enough to make him roll over.

He already knows who it is anyways, recognizes the cool-water-mint-moss scent even though he’s only really come in contact with it a handful of times.

Besides, Naruto is pretty sure that, at this point in his life, there’s only one person who’d be able to get into his apartment or so close to him without it immediately waking him up.

Only one person that, after everything, he trusts enough to get so close.

So of course her summons, the being tied to her blood and chakra and _soul_ , gets the same sort of consideration.

“Katsuyu,” Naruto murmurs, one arm snaking out from his blanket to pat her gently on the head, careful of her eye stalks and his claws. “What’s wrong?” 

“Tsunade-sama sent me to retrieve you, Naruto-kun,” Katsuyu’s voice is a soft, sweet chime as she slides up over the curve of his shoulder and then, after he shifts again to accommodate her, circles so that she’s sitting up on his chest and facing him. “You’ve been inside for a week now, no one has seen you.”

Naruto grimaces just a bit, his other hand coming up out of his blanket to scrub roughly at his face.

A week.

It’s almost hard for Naruto to believe that it’s already, and yet only, been a _week_.

An entire week since he’d stopped going to training, since he’d turned his attention towards sealing instead.

A week since he’d fallen head first into the one thing that’s captured every single bit of his attention in a way that nothing, not even his clones or the Rasengan, had managed to do.

Naruto barely remembers the passage of time if he’s being honest.

Most of his attention and memory had been dedicated towards his new obsession.

All of him had been committed to the beauty and awe of how this brush stroke needed to flow or that radical needed to be drawn. To the fascinating challenge of how one simple motion of his brush could be the difference between a storage scroll, ready and waiting to be activated and used, and an immediate explosion that sent his healing factor into overdrive to repair the damage.

Just like in his frantic two day dash through the chest of scrolls, he’d barely taken the time to do anything else but learn and create. He’d only stopped putting brush to paper or rereading scrolls when a clone had shoved food at him or when the need for the bathroom was too urgent to ignore anymore.

Naruto doesn’t even remember going to sleep.

“Come now, Naruto-kun, time to gather yourself,” Katsuyu murmurs softly as she slides down off of his chest to sit beside him again. “Tsunade-sama is expecting you soon.”

“Okay,” Naruto tells her as he finally untangles himself all the way from his blanket. “I’m coming.”

He doesn’t bother to complain like he might have in the past, doesn’t even want to.

Not when it’s _Tsunade_ who’s calling him. Not when he has so much to show her.

Not when she’s proven herself to be one of the only ones who might actually care to _listen_.

~~~

Naruto’s apartment is, as he soon discovers with some degree of dismay, a _mess_.

Which is, despite what most people think of him, far from normal.

He's always taken care of what few things he's had, more than aware of the fact that if he broke them or mistreated them they wouldn't be replaced.

So the disarray he finds now is ... unpleasant.

There are tattered scrolls laying draped or stacked across every available spot, there are more than a few scorch marks on his already ragged walls and floor, and the scent of burnt ink and smoldering paperis heavy in the air.

Proof of his many, many failures and experiments.

The only things that still look cared for are his plants, the chest with its bounty of priceless scrolls, and the small tidy stack of successful seals he’s managed to make so far.

A twist of chakra has a new batch of clones appearing, all of them scattering across the small apartment without a word. They, as always, know what to do.

~~~

After saying goodbye to Katsuyu and taking a frigid shower, Naruto wastes no time in getting dressed again. He still can’t help the way his nose automatically seeks out the fading scent of sea-salt, some kind of flower he still can’t place, and a hint of musk as he pulls his training kimono on.

“No food left, Boss,” one of his clones informs him even as it carefully settles around half of the small stack of completed seals inside the small top half of his refrigerator.

The thing’s never worked right as far as he can tell, only ever just a few degrees cooler than his normally stifling apartment during the summer months and actually a few degrees _warmer_ than some of the coldest nights he can remember. The top part has never worked at all and Naruto’s long since taken to using it for storage for things he doesn’t want to leave sitting out where anyone could see them.

Besides, the few times someone’s forced themselves inside his apartment it’s always been the one place no one’s ever bothered for some reason.

“I’ll get some later,” Naruto waves the issue aside, ignoring the rolling in his stomach with practiced ease. It’s not like it’ll be the first time he’s gone without food in the morning and he knows it won’t be the last.

Besides it’s not like he can just send out a clone to do the shopping for him, transformation or not. All it would take would be a hard enough hit for any reason and it would dispel.

Then he’d be out whatever it had managed to buy and, more importantly, the _money_.

So sneering villagers, disdainful shopkeepers, upped prices and half spoiled goods or not, Naruto would rather go himself when he gets the chance.

“Gama-chan’s looking kinda empty too Boss,” another clone announces, waving Naruto’s wallet, one of his few actual possessions he didn’t pull out of someone’s trash, in one hand before tossing it to him.

Naruto can’t bite back a wince as he pops the wallet open and looks at the single lonely note and the few spare coins inside. Money had always been _tight_ for him when he was a kid, the orphan’s stipend he used to get never seeming to go far enough. He’d gone hungry more than once, especially in the months when he had to buy new supplies for the Academy or when the shops decided to hike their prices even higher than normal.

October has _never_ been a good time for either Naruto’s heart or his stomach.

Naruto had been hoping for an increase in funds once he became a real shinobi and could take on missions to help make up the difference. But what he hadn’t been counting on, what he’d forgotten to consider, was having to split that mission pay with his team. Or the fact that, as their jōnin sensei, Kakashi would get the fox’s share of the money with the remaining half split between him, Sasuke, and Sakura.

Even with the way Kakashi would, more often than not, wave his own share aside for the majority of their simpler D-rank missions, it wasn’t enough.

At least, not for Naruto.

Kakashi was, as far as Naruto could tell, probably the shinobi version of _rich_ considering the kinds of missions he probably used to take before he got Team 7. Naruto knew for a fact, thanks to more than one eavesdropped on conversation in the Academy, that Sasuke had all the money he’d ever need since all of the Uchiha accounts had gone to him. And then there was Sakura who still lived with parents who, apparently, actually loved her.

But Naruto? With the orphan’s stipend stopping the moment he received his headband, and the few missions they did take resulting in split pay, Naruto’s barely managed to break even since leaving the Academy.

And now that Naruto’s gone an entire _week_ without taking a single mission with Team 7 …

 _Well_.

Sharp teeth chewing at his lower lip, Naruto takes a moment to debate with himself.

Because he _does_ have more money than what’s tucked away inside of Gama-chan. 

While it’s true that October’s always been the worst time of the year for him money wise on top of everything else, the October from the year he’d started the Academy had been the worst by far.

It had been before he really knew how to handle his money or had figured out which shops with hiked prices he could still afford.

The Old Man had been too busy to see him that entire month so Naruto had been on his own as he was with most things. He’d spent the majority of the month hungry and drinking as much water as possible, his head spinning and stomach cramping.

He’d gotten real good at figuring out which dumpsters he could safely scavenge from that month.

He’d gotten even better at running and hiding.

Needless to say that was a month that Naruto _never_ wanted to repeat, a month that he’d promised himself would _never_ happen again.

So he’d started saving all of his extra money, what little there was after everything else was paid for.

The result is a slowly growing thick wad of bills stuffed inside an old, cleaned out ramen cup and hidden beneath one of the floorboards in his apartment.

Sometimes, when he’s hungry or lonely, or when he walks by a shop with something shiny and _nice_ looking sitting in a window, or when the Yamanaka’s get a new, exotic looking plant in stock that he _wants,_ Naruto will come back to his apartment and take that cup out.

He’ll sit down cross legged on his floor and he’ll count that money, over and over again, while he reminds himself just what it’s for. Will think back to that month, to that never ending hunger. To the bruises from when he was caught in someone’s trash, to the sheer _hurt_ of it all.

He’ll force himself to remember all of it, to remind himself that that wad of money means safety from ever having to go through that again.

And then he’ll tuck the money back away and go drink another glass of water from the faucet or chew a few leaves off of the mint plant that grows by his window. He’ll go outside to run through the sunshine or he'll go curl up in the comfortable shadows beneath his bed. Sometimes he’ll head out to find more abandoned plants or he’ll dig through a few safe dumpsters or play a few pranks.

Anything, everything, to take his mind off of whatever it is that had made him _want_.

So, technically, Naruto does have money but at the same time …

Even the _thought_ of spending any of what he has tucked away makes his heart speed up, makes his chest clench tightly, and his fingertips tingle.

Which means it's just not a real option for him right now.

Doing his best to shake his rapidly spiraling thoughts off, Naruto tucks his almost empty wallet away in one of the inner pockets of his kimono. Squaring his shoulders he grabs the other half of the completed seals one of his clones holds out to him, and then heads towards his window.

He doesn’t really want to see the rest of Team 7 again anytime soon if he can help it, so he’ll just have to see about taking on some missions of his own. He’s a chūnin now so he should be able to at least do D-ranks by himself.

Plus, if he’s lucky, Teuchi and Ayame might let him wash dishes or sweep up at the stand again in exchange for a few bowls of ramen before they close for the night.

Either way he’ll make due, like he normally does.

But first, Tsunade.

~~~

Naruto hops into Tsunade’s office by way of the newly repaired window, shoulders shifting uncomfortably as soon as his feet touch down.

The office feels like it had when the Old Man used to let him in to visit instead of the emptier feeling it’s had the last few times he’s stopped by to see Tsunade.

It doesn’t feel _bad_ exactly but it’s enough of a noticeable difference to him to make the hair on his nape prickle for a moment before he tries to forcefully shrug it off.

“About time you showed up, brat,” Tsunade huffs from her place behind her desk. “Was beginning to think I was going to have to have you pulled back out of that apartment by your ankles if Katsuyu didn’t manage to get you out.”

Tsunade’s hand flicks out to her side and the room abruptly feels empty again.

Something in Naruto finally relaxes all the way, a subtle sort of tension sliding down off of his shoulders.

“Was busy,” Naruto shrugs just a bit, a hand coming up to scratch at the back of his head before he pauses, bites at his lip, and then forces himself to keep going. “Got a lot to show you if … if you wanna see it?”

Something in Tsunade’s expression softens just a bit then, something warm he can’t really place tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“Sure thing brat,” Tsunade agrees, beckoning him closer to her desk. “I’ve got some time once we get through with the official business. You can show me whatever it is you’ve got once that’s handled.”

Naruto, warmth blossoming in his chest, _smiles_.

“You’re looking good,” Tsunade says then, eyes tracing over his kimono and the pins in his hair. “I like the yellow better than the orange.”

“Orange is great,” Naruto automatically defends, eyes narrowing a bit before his smile comes back almost against his will as he reaches down to fidget with the hem of his kimono. “But this is …,” Naruto pauses, swallows hard, and when he speaks again his voice is _thick_ , “this is _Mom_.”

“I know,” Tsunade agrees softly. “And it really does look good on you, Naruto. She’d love it, I promise she would.”

There’s a moment of charged silence between them before Tsunade sighs again and leans back in her chair.

“Kakashi said you haven’t been going to training,” Tsunade finally murmurs.

“They don’t really ...,” Naruto bites down on his tongue, bites back the words _‘want me’_ so fast and hard that he tastes blood. He knows it’s true but he doesn’t actually want to say it, not now, not to Tsunade. Doesn't want to actually put the words out into the air around him. Not yet. So he settles on the other half of the truth. “I wanted to do ... other stuff. With some of the things in my scrolls.”

“You can’t spend all of your time locked up with those scrolls, brat.” Tsunade tells him sternly but not harshly. “It’s not good for you or your training. Body and mind are equally important tools to work with so you can’t just forget one for the other.”

“I know,” Naruto agrees because he does know that now, is aware of that truth in a way and from an angle that he never was before. Overall he’s never been the type to stay inside for days on end and normally he’d have been itching for sun and wind and motion _days_ ago but this time things were … _different_. “I just … I’m learning _so much_ and I really … I _want_...”

Naruto pauses, just a bit frustrated because he can’t get his words to work right in his head. A part of him is pretty sure he doesn’t actually _have_ the words he needs to show her just how important what he’s been doing is to him. It all feels almost too big to actually explain but he knows he has to try, somehow he has to make her see.

So instead of just standing there in frustration any longer he reaches a hand into his kimono and pulls out the few seals he’d brought with him.

He steps forward to place the small stack down carefully on the desk in front of Tsunade.

Tsunade, a brow arched up in question, leans forwards to pick them up. Her eyes widen just a bit as she leafs through the bundle, both brows arching up high in surprise at what she finds.

Without saying anything she pulls out one of the simpler storage seals he’d made from the stack and promptly seals and then unseals one of her brushes into it with a small flare of chakra.

“It’s only been a week,” she says absently, like she’s talking more to herself than to him as she stares down at the seal.

But Naruto still jumps on it because that’s his _point_.

“They _work_ ,” he tells her just a bit desperately, hands fisted around the bottom edges of his unzipped vest as his mouth just keeps _moving_ , all traces of his earlier hesitance gone. “All of them _work_. I’ve got a few more back home and they all work too. I read the scrolls and Mom ... she wrote _so much_ about the Uzumaki and about sealing that I just … I wanted to _try_. Because, because it was from my _family_ , _my Clan_. And, and I blew up a lot of them the first couple tries but then, then I got them _right_ and they _work_ and I just want to learn more about this so if you could just _please_ …”

“Naruto,” Tsunade interrupts him, “ _breathe_.”

Naruto sucks in a ragged, shaky breath.

“Now,” Tsunade says, “what, _exactly_ , is it you’re trying to ask me to do?”

_Naruto loves her._

He loves her so _so much_ he can barely breathe from it.

Because she _asks_.

Even when she doesn’t have to, she always seems so willing to just … _ask_.

And, more often than not, no one has ever really bothered to ask Naruto what _he_ wants, not when it _counts_ , not when it’s _important_.

Naruto takes a moment, does his best to breathe deep and even as he counts the stacked scrolls and folders sitting on the edge of her desk.

“The others ...” Naruto starts, voice halting, “all the others are … they’ve all got _something_. Clan stuff like, like Sasuke and Hinata. Or they’re really smart like Shikamaru or have good control like Sakura or they’re super fast and strong like Lee or good with weapons like Tenten. They’ve all got _something_.”

Naruto tries to smile again but it’s more of a grimace, more of a pained showing of teeth instead.

“Everybody has _something_ ,” Naruto repeats as he darts a hand up to rub the inside of his wrist against his cheekbone, “everybody but _me_.”

His breathing is ragged but he can’t, won’t, stop until she _understands_.

“I’m not ... I’ve never just been _smart_ or _good_ ,” Naruto rasps, hands moving to flex at his sides as he finally puts into words a truth that’s haunted him his entire life. “I'm good at getting hit, always have been, but now … now I’m good at _this_. At sealing. I … _I’m good at it_. It makes _sense_. Something _finally_ makes sense for me. And I … I’ve _never_ been so good at something before, not really, not like _this_. Not something people won’t call stupid or _useless_ or, or something I can only do because I’ve got so much chakra I can’t do the simple stuff everybody else can do like with my clones. And it’s not even something people will hate me for either, not like with the fox.”

“ _Naruto_ …” Tsunade murmurs softly.

“It’s something _my Clan_ was good at too,” a hand comes up to thump at his chest as Naruto keeps going, determined to get this out into the air between them. “It’s their legacy to _me_. And I just _want_ … I want to be able to do this. I want to learn more about it. And you made me a chūnin so that means I can do stuff on my own now right? So I want to do _this_. I won’t bother anyone like I normally do cause I don’t even have to have anyone to teach me since I’ve got Mom’s scrolls and my clones so I can teach myself but I just … _I want to be good at something too_.”

Naruto’s almost panting by the time he’s done, hands fisted at his sides and claws digging into the tender skin of his palms.

For a long moment Tsunade just _looks_ at him.

“Sealing _is_ a dying art,” Tsunade finally breaks the silence, lips pursed in contemplation. “And you _have_ shown talent in it already, more than I think you realize. This … this is important to you, I can see that too.”

“ _Please_ ,” Naruto half whispers, half begs.

“And Team 7 _is_ restricted to the village for now too, baring Kakashi himself ...” Tsunade muses, one finger tapping at the storage seal in front of her.

Naruto feels a fragile sort of hope begin to well up inside of him.

“Alright brat,” Tsunade announces as she abruptly leans forward in her chair, hands steepled in front of her face. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You’ve got my blessing to continue your sealing studies for now at your own pace, and I’ll even excuse you from daily training with Team 7 since you’re right, you _are_ a chūnin now and that means you’re entitled to some independence and freedom. Kakashi can keep focusing on the other two brats for a while, it’ll do them both some good.”

That tiny bud of hope blossoms in Naruto’s chest and something that feels a lot like joy, a lot like _happiness_ , comes hard and heavy in its wake.

“ _But_ ,” Tsunade keeps going, voice stern and expression set, “that doesn’t mean I want you locked away in that apartment all the time either. I want you out on the training field regularly and I want your name on _at least_ a dozen completed D-ranks, either with Team 7 or solo, every single week. Mess up and you’ll regret it, you got me brat?”

“Got it!” Naruto’s quick to agree, face stretched into a smile so wide and genuine it almost _hurts_. “I won’t let you down!”

“Yeah,” Tsunade smiles back at him then, expression soft. “I already know you won’t. Somehow I’m not sure you ever really could.”

And when Naruto practically throws himself across her desk to hug her, Tsunade meets him halfway with a short bark of laughter.

Because of course she does.


	7. Chapter 7

Nervousness twisting his stomach into knots, Naruto slinks his way closer to the mission desk, hands curled around the bottom of his vest and the inside of his cheek caught firmly between his teeth.

He’s pretty sure he should have waited, should have held off coming to get a mission until later, until Iruka-sensei or Tsunade herself were the ones manning the desk but …

Tsunade has been _so good_ to him, so understanding, and he just wants to make her proud, wants to show her right away that he’ll do what they agreed to. Wants to waste no time in proving that her faith and her trust haven’t been misplaced.

Plus, Naruto admits to himself, there’s also the irresistible call of money waiting to be earned. Of mission pay that he won’t have to split and the opportunity to fatten up both Gama-chan and his secret stash and to maybe, just maybe, have enough left over to buy something nice for once.

Like maybe one of the good and healthy plants from the Yamanaka shop, one of the nice ones that never ends up on a clearance shelf or thrown out altogether. Maybe one of the pretty, silk petaled flowering plants that’ll add something new and sweet scented to his apartment.

Maybe he’ll even have enough money to hunt down and then actually _buy_ the plant or flower with that specific scent …

“What do _you_ want?” the chūnin manning the desk, a woman with thick black hair and a scar tugging down the right side of her mouth, sneers just a bit when Naruto steps up in front of her.

Naruto really should have waited.

“Can I get a D-rank mission,” Naruto asks her as politely as he knows how, “ _please_?”

The chūnin stares at him for a moment, that long familiar hint of scorn heavy in her expression as she tracks her eyes over Naruto’s chūnin vest. Then, with a short scoff, she reaches over and grabs a mission scroll and tosses it roughly in his direction.

“You fail and you’ll be held responsible and given no pay,” she huffs. “Now get out.”

Naruto, scroll clutched tightly in hand, does just that.

~~~

The first mission is weed pulling in a garden.

Not glamorous or exceptionally well paying by far.

Sasuke and Sakura would have complained, always had in their own unique ways in the past just like Naruto always had for his own reasons, but now?

Now that Naruto’s on his own and won’t have to deal with completing a mission like this for someone who will, more than likely, _hate him_ and then also have to deal with splitting the pay?

Now a mission like this looks beyond good for Naruto.

All he has to do is get through it.

But he’s a chūnin now and has faced down worse things than hateful villagers, so weeding a garden should be no trouble at all.

~~~

Except no. No it’s not. _'No trouble’_ is far from what the mission ends up being for Naruto.

“ _You idiot_!” Ogawa, the owner of the garden, shrieks at Naruto, broom raised high above his head with one hand and the mission scroll Naruto needed him to sign clenched tightly in his other. “You’ve ruined my garden!”

Naruto hops backwards automatically to avoid the downswing of the broom, hands clenched tightly at his sides and a sick knot of hurt and anger burning in his gut.

He _didn’t_ ruin the garden, Naruto _knows_ he didn’t. He’d weeded it just like the mission scroll had said and then had even gone the extra step of pruning back some of the rot and sickness that had begun to creep up on a few of the plants. Years of caring for his own plants means that Naruto knows that picking off the yellow and black spotted leaves was the _right_ thing to do.

All he’s done is help keep the rest of the garden from getting sick or the plants from dying.

“I’ll be reporting this to the Hokage,” Ogawa sneers even as he throws the mission scroll with its still wet _‘fail’_ kanji on it at Naruto’s head. His expression only darkens when Naruto catches it easily. “Failing a mission even an academy student could do? Senju-sama will take that vest back from you, boy. Mark my words. You should’ve never gotten it in the first place.”

Naruto doesn’t say anything, doesn’t try to fight a battle he already knows he’ll lose. Instead he turns on his heel and sprints off back to the mission desk.

On rare occasions he does actually know when to cut his losses.

~~~

“Figures,” the mission desk chūnin scoffs, sneer still firmly in place, as Naruto hands over the mission scroll silently. “You failed it, you don’t get paid.”

Naruto, palms pressed tightly against his thighs to keep his claws from digging in, says nothing, head bowed and traitorous tears prickling hot and heavy at the corners of his eyes.

“What’re you still doing standing there?” the chūnin asks.

“Another one,” Naruto manages to get the words out evenly enough. “Give me another one.”

“Fine,” she tosses another scroll at him. “You’ll just fail this one too.”

~~~

The half full paint can sends Naruto's head snapping back when it connects but he shakes the pain off and away a split second later.

“ _Leave!_ ” Ueno, the shop owner who’d asked for help painting her store front, screeches at Naruto.

Naruto, chest heaving, ducks underneath the second thrown paint can, snatches the mission scroll out of her hand, and takes off down the street.

Behind him Ueno shouts and screams but Naruto just keeps moving, not slowing down even as thick white paint streaks down his face.

~~~

Naruto doesn’t go back to the assignment desk right away this time.

Instead he runs until he finds himself standing, panting and shaking, on a familiar bridge.

Just down the way and through the thin line of trees is Team 7’s normal training ground. And if the sounds he can pick up and the general feel in the air is anything to go by, it’s currently occupied.

Mission scroll still clenched in one hand, Naruto tries to force himself to take deep, even breaths.

But when he inhales the scent of paint is thick and heavy in his sense and when he looks down all he can see are the streaks of thick white paint splattered across dark green and cheery yellow.

Naruto abruptly _wheezes_ , hands spasming and scroll falling down onto the bridge with a quiet thunk. 

“ _No_ ,” Naruto moans quietly to himself. _“No, no, no. It’s gonna be ruined.”_

Chest tight, hands shaking, Naruto tries to scrape the paint off, movements frantic and jerky as his hands swipe across the thick fabric.

It doesn’t work, there’s too much paint on him and there’s more dripping off his hair and down his face and neck.

Mission scroll forgotten on the bridge Naruto does the only thing he can think of.

He plants one hand on the bridge’s railing and vaults over it.

He hits the water with a small splash, a light flare of chakra bringing half a dozen clones to life beneath the water around him as he struggles out of his chūnin vest and the training kimono before he surfaces with a bitten off gasp.

Hands grab the fabric away from him, pulling all of it off to the side to scrub frantically at the paint while others grab sand from the river bed and attack his hair and the paint that found a home there.

Naruto, breathing unsteady, lets his clones scrub at him even as he shakes and shivers from how cold the water is and how tight his chest feels.

“Think we saved it, Boss,” one of his clones tells him as it trots over to stand beside him, sandals moving over the surface of the river while Naruto himself stays half submerged.

The clone holds the kimono up for him to inspect and, sure enough, Naruto’s relieved to see that the cheery yellow fabric is paint free and already beginning to dry. The same can be said of the vest that one of the other clones is also holding

Shame abruptly swamps Naruto even as he crawls up out of the river and settles down on top of it with chakra control he hadn’t had only a few short months ago.

 _Of course_ the kimono is fine. It, just like his chūnin vest, is meant for _shinobi_. They were both made thick and durable, meant to survive things like kunai and shuriken, to repel things like blood and waste and even survive fire to a degree and to dry quickly after they’re wet. 

Naruto shouldn’t have panicked the way he had.

Shinobi wear or not he’d known that his vest, just like Kakashi and Iruka-sensei’s vests, would likely take a beating. That was expected and acceptable for all that he cherished the thing and would do his best to keep it in one piece.

He’d also known that there was a chance the kimono could get damaged if he wore it. He’d known that and he’d accepted it, or at least thought he had, when he’d decided that having something of Kushina’s close to his skin was worth the risk.

And yet Naruto knows there’s a difference between what he’d been willing to let happen to it and what had _actually_ happened.

Having the kimono damaged in training or battle would have been understandable. Would have been expected and accepted and fine.

But having it damaged, having it possibly destroyed, like _that_? Because of _paint_ and some random villager’s blind hate and cruelty?

He had not thought about that, hadn’t taken that kind of thing into account. He should have, he knows he should have, but he’d just …

Naruto sighs, presses himself up onto his feet, and then hops back up onto the bridge, the clones holding the kimono and his vest following behind him while the others dispel themselves.

Standing on the bridge in just his sandals and underwear, Naruto rakes his hands through his hair, noting absently that it’s gotten longer again, before he shakes himself like one of Kakashi-sensei’s dogs.

It doesn’t get him completely dry but it’s better than nothing. Plus Naruto doesn’t actually know any wind jutsu that could dry him off. Not like Kakashi-sensei would use sometimes during D-ranks or training when they got soaked for one reason or another.

For a split second Naruto hesitates there on the bridge, teeth chewing on his lower lip and head turned towards the training ground.

He could maybe ...

Naruto waves the half formed idea away sharply before it can solidify any more than it already has.

Instead he gets dressed, pulling his kimono back on, fixing his headband around his waist again, and then slipping into his vest, and bends down to pick up his mission scroll again.

He’s got another failed mission to report.

~~~

“That’s two,” the chūnin tells him sharply. “You fail this one and I don’t want to see you back here on your own without express permission from Hokage-sama herself. Can’t have you failing missions all over the village for no reason.”

Naruto, hair still damp, just clutches his third mission scroll close to his chest, turns on his heel, and dashes off.

~~~

Instead of heading directly to the mission’s location, Naruto drops back by his apartment first.

He slips in through the window and slumps down on the floor at the foot of his bed with a deep sigh that hitches half way through.

All he’d wanted to do was take a few missions, make a bit of money and prove to Tsunade that he _could do this_.

But, like always, he’d messed it all up just by being himself.

It _hurts_.

Naruto loves the village. Loves the towering trees with their sprawling branches and evergreen leaves. He loves the tall buildings and the narrow alleys, loves the streets and the rivers and everything in between.

Konoha is the only home he’s ever known and he _loves_ it.

But when it comes to the _people_ …

Naruto loves Konoha but on his darker days, on the days when it’s harder to smile and the entire world feels as if it’s pressing in around him and in moments like these, Naruto has to admit that sometimes he’s not sure if he loves the people in it.

He knows they’re good people, he _knows_ they are. Naruto’s seen the kindness in them when he’s not around. Has seen the way the takoyaki stand man who once threw boiling oil at him always lowers his prices when someone obviously less well off comes by his stall.

Naruto’s seen the way that more than one of the restaurants that won’t even let him inside donates their leftover food to the orphanage or lets their employees take it home at night. He’s seen the matron that had always hated him stay up late to sew new clothes for the orphanage kids on their birthdays.

He’s seen the librarian smile at loud little kids and lost adults instead of screaming and banning them from entering. He’s seen the same shopkeepers who hike the prices on him or won’t let him through the door wave customers who don’t have quite enough money away with a kind smile, an understanding nod, and mentions of putting their purchases on their tabs.

Naruto’s seen a million and one tiny acts of kindness in the village that _hates_ him.

And even though he knows he should be proud of people for doing those kinds of things, even though he knows that kindness should always be encouraged, it still hurts something deep inside of him every time he sees something like that.

Every time he sees some warm shred of compassion and care that’s never really been extended to him before something inside of him curls down just a bit further and _aches._

He isn’t sure what, if anything, that says about him.

He just knows that it hurts and he hates it and he doesn’t like the ache or the molten hot flare of rage and anger that ignites in his chest sometimes when he thinks about it. He doesn’t like feeling so negative, doesn’t like the way he has to press those emotions down and away when they feel like they’ll bubble up and out of his skin.

Naruto scrubs roughly at his face, dashing hot tears away even as one hand comes up to tug roughly at his hair.

He doesn’t want to feel this way, doesn’t want to think about any of this. Doesn’t want to dwell on the fact that, even now, even as a chūnin, the village still won’t let him do the things other people get to do without even thinking about them.

They won’t even let him have the credit for missions he _knows_ he did correctly.

It’s not _fair_.

He _hates_ it and he just … he knows he could say something to Tsunade, knows that she’d probably try to help somehow too, but she’s already done _so much_ for him and he doesn’t want to ask for more.

Not so soon, not like this.

Naruto doesn’t want to be _selfish_.

Naruto just _wants_ …

His breathing grows heavy and rasping again and Naruto can’t help but fold down in on himself just a bit, arms crossed over his chest and knees drawn up.

His chest feels too small and too tight and all he wants, all he really wants in this moment, is for someone to hold him.

For there to _be_ someone to hold him.

He wants Tsunade’s strong grip and the sake-mint scent of her on his skin and hair again as she pressed him against her shoulder and just _holds him_. Wants Iruka-sensei’s smile and the gentle way his hand ruffles Naruto’s hair.

He just _wants_...

Above all else, Naruto wants warm arms and a bright smile, wants sea-salt, and flowers. He wants _red hair_ and _fox-musk_ , wants thin calloused hands running through his hair and pulling him closer.

He wants to never have to worry about the villagers throwing things at him every again or screaming and cursing and _hitting_.

Naruto wants comfort and care and he _wants his mom_ and he _can’t have her ever_ and that hurts almost as much as the way he _can’t breathe_ and and _and_ … 

There’s a twist of chakra, a small pulse of it, and then there are hands on his face, thin calloused fingertips tracing gently over his whisker marks.

“ _Shh_ ,” a voice, husky like Tsunade’s and just a bit stern like Iruka-sensei’s, whispers in his ear. The faded scent of fox wafts up to him. “It’s okay.”

Naruto finds his face pressed against thick, sturdy silk as a hand runs through his hair, fingers playing with the strands that have grown out enough to almost touch his collar.

When he manages to pry his eyes open all Naruto sees is _red_.

Blood red, grave-rose red, _Uzushio sunset Uzumaki red_.

Naruto _wails_.

His arms shoot forward, clamping down around the body in front of him as he lunges towards the person holding him.

“ _Mom_ ,” the word’s half howl, half sob, and wholly torn from the very depths of Naruto’s soul.

For a split second he gets to feel it. Gets to feel thin, solid arms wrapped around him in an embrace.

But then the force of his lunge connects and the clone dispels in a poof of smoke, the memory of watching himself gasp and shake on the floor rushing in around the edges.

Naruto lands in a heap on the floor of his empty apartment.

He stays there, face buried in the hardwood, arms curled around _nothing_ and sobs shaking every inch of him, for the longest time.

~~~

Later, much later, Naruto pries himself off of the floor and stumbles towards his bathroom. He twists the sink on and waits for the knocking in the pipes to settle and the water to run clear instead of murky before he uses the frigid water to scrub his face clean of dried tears.

When he’s through he shuffles his way back out of the bathroom and then stops. Standing in the middle of his apartment, only his plants and his few ragged things for company, Naruto is at a momentary loss.

His mind keeps trying to circle back around to what had happened, back to that red hair and those arms holding him, back to that _clone_ , but Naruto shies away from those thoughts.

That way, Naruto knows instinctively, lies danger.

He could get lost there, in that whirlpool of possibilities. Could get sucked down and _drown_ in it, in pale imitations that would be so tempting but will never, could never, be correct. Would never be _enough_.

He could make an army of clones over and over again, could shape them and twist them and have them wear her face and her form but they’d _never_ …

Naruto shakes his head sharply and moves back across the room to pick up the mission scroll and crack it open.

He can’t help but grimace just a bit at what he sees. Dog walking for old man Furuta, a surly grump that Team 7 has worked for before. He’d given Naruto a hard time then too, even with Kakashi-sensei and the others around.

If Naruto walks up to his house _alone_ …

Needless to say it won’t end well.

What he needs is a way to get this mission done without setting Furuta off and earning an automatic fail.

What he needs is to just … not be _Naruto_ for a little while. To be someone else, some faceless random shinobi there to do a job. Someone calm and pleasing and not worth thinking about once they’re gone.

Scroll in hand, Naruto moves back towards his bathroom and the cracked, forever cloudy mirror that sits above the sink.

Transformation had come easiest to him out of the three Academy basic jutsu even though it had still taken hours of work to get his chakra to act right. He’d even eventually decided to play around with it and make his own techniques from it.

All this will be is more of the same. A new form he can use to get things done, something no one will connect back to him after the fact.

So that means this transformation can’t have any of his well known flair to it, nothing that will tie it back to him.

It needs to be a whole new face and form, like playing a role in a film or making up a new character like in Ero-sennin’s books.

 _Easy_.

~~~

Naruto is a child of _legacy_. Is a boy desperate to hold onto the bits and pieces of history and care and warmth he’s been able to scrape together throughout his life.

So of course that influences him in this too.

If he’s going to make up a whole new identity to use in the village of course it’s going to be cobbled together from little bits and pieces of the people he _loves_.

Of course it is.

~~~

“Hello,” Naruto keeps his voice as gentle as snow fall as he bows just a bit to Furuta, the motion as smooth and elegant as ice, as he folds his hands in his kimono sleeves. His double ponytails, black with deep red undertones and _spikey_ , fall forward over his shoulders as he does. When he smiles his sea-foam eyes light up and the scar across his nose crinkles just a bit. “I’m here to complete your requested D-rank mission. You can call me Arashi.”

And Furuta, the same one who’d once thrown an empty sake bottle at Naruto, smiles and invites him inside to meet the dogs.

~~~

The sour look on the mission desk chūnin’s face when Naruto reports back with a successful mission scroll in hand is a reward all on its own.

Being able to pay Teuchi and Ayame actual money later on that evening is just a bonus.

~~~

Naruto turns up at the mission desk early the next morning after spending most of the night experimenting with a new durability seal he wants to, hopefully, add to a few of his things once he gets it right.

He has a plan of action now and has set aside the entire day to do as many missions as possible.

And with his new Arashi transformation in hand to keep him safe and his clones always waiting to back him up, Naruto knows he can get a lot done.

It’s time to make Gama-chan fatter than ever.

**Author's Note:**

> Come scream at me and check out the tag Team Uzumaki AU for more information on this AU (highly advised that you add /chrono to the tag though):
> 
> http://rayshippouuchiha.tumblr.com/


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